The Rescue
by flaks314
Summary: "Just when the Animorphs thought they might have found a new weapon against the Yeerks, everything went horribly wrong. If they don't act quickly, they'll lose a team member, and the Yeerks will soon know all their secrets." Written to feel as much like a real Animorphs book as possible. Sequel to The Anomaly. Series starts after book 22 (the David arc).
1. Chapter 1

**Preface/notes**

* * *

This is a direct "to be continued" sequel to _The Anomaly_. While I go out of my way to explain things that happened in previous books/stories here and there (just like the original books), starting here would be like starting in the middle of the David arc. I highly recommend that you at least read _The Anomaly_ first.

The goal of this series is to branch off from the main story line after book 22 (the David arc), while staying true to the style of the original books. I'm mostly writing them to let my mind drift back to the world that dominated my childhood imagination, but I'll be happy to take you along for the ride.

The series so far:

1: _The Hunt_ (Rachel)

2: _The Anomaly_ (Cassie)

3: _The Rescue_ (Jake)

I have ideas for more, but no promises.

* * *

Font test: ≺ **This sentence should be surrounded in thought-speak quotes.≻** If it isn't, try changing your browser's character encoding or font until it does. Unfortunately, fanfiction blocks regular less-than/greater-than symbols.

* * *

 **Chapter 1**

* * *

My name is Jake.

If I was just a normal teenager, I'd have been in school right then. Last period. Biology, I think.

I'm not really a biology kind of guy. That's more Cassie's thing. She'd have been with me in class if she was also just a normal teenager.

I guess I kind of like Cassie. No, I _really_ like Cassie. I'm pretty sure she likes me back in the same way, but neither of us ever really said anything. It just shows from things like taking each other's hands or instinctively huddling up together when things get rough. Maybe if we were normal teenagers I'd have asked her out by now.

But we're not.

I was flying around this university hospital thing a two-hour's drive away from school. Yes, flying – I was in my peregrine falcon morph. My friends Marco, Rachel, Jordan, Tobias, and Ax were with me in their various other bird-of-prey morphs.

Cassie was in some laboratory in the basement of the hospital, in her new Yeerk morph. She'd just infested Jessica, so Sharon and Hank – Jessica's mom and a colleague of hers – could take samples to try to figure out why Yeerks can't control her.

That's what Yeerks do: they crawl inside your skull and take full control over your body. They're sentient parasites. But Jessica is somehow immune to them.

Erek was there too. He's a Chee: an alien android with the ability to make holograms. He's an important ally of ours, but he can't fight the Yeerks directly because of his pacifist programming.

All that was part of our latest mission to try to save Earth from the Yeerks. They're invading us, and we're the only ones who have even the slightest chance of doing anything about it. A group of teenagers who call themselves the Animorphs. If we fail, humanity will be nothing but slaves in a couple of years.

Scared yet? Because I am.

Our only defense against the Yeerks is secrecy. They must never find out who we are, so they can never be allowed to see us out of morph. That's a bit of an issue, because we can't go from one morph directly to another, and can only stay in morph for two hours at a time. If we stay longer, we can never morph back.

The only ones of us who can morph without revealing that we're human are Ax and Tobias. Ax because he _isn't_ human – he's an Andalite, like the Yeerks expect all of us to be. And Tobias because… well, he used to be human, but his natural form is a red-tailed hawk now.

The Yeerks think we're Andalites because morphing is Andalite technology, and Andalites are normally not very keen on sharing their technology with other species. Elfangor only did so because he knew it was the only chance for humanity. Even if it was a tiny one.

On the whole, we're not doing as bad as you'd think. After all, we've been at it for half a year now, and we're not dead yet. We even win sometimes.

But not always. Sometimes we mess up. Big time.

Zzzzaaap, zzzaaaap, zzzaaap.

Even to my keen falcon ears, the sound was weak. But it was unmistakable. Dracon beams, down in the basement of the hospital. They're the Yeerks' weapon of choice.

≺Whoa!≻ Tobias called out.

≺Oh man, tell me that wasn't Dracon fire,≻ Marco said simultaneously.

≺Cassie!≻ Rachel yelled. ≺Cassie, are you okay?≻

Both Cassie and Erek should have been able to respond using thought-speak. It's a telepathic thing that we can do whenever we're in morph. I don't know how Erek does it, but it's one of his abilities.

Thought-speak can be directed to only those who you want to hear it. So even if a Controller was pointing a Dracon beam directly at them and told them to stay quiet, they could still have safely told us what was going on.

But they didn't. So that meant… Cassie could… Cassie could be dead?

No, she can't be. She just can't. A minute ago everything had still been fine! Things can't go wrong that quickly. And this was supposed to be the easy part of our mission!

Dracon beams can also be set to stun, like phasers from _Star Trek_. Surely Cassie was just stunned! We just… We just had to get to her before they'd take her.

≺What are you all waiting for?!≻ Rachel screamed. ≺Cassie needs help! Demorph!≻

≺Demorph _where?_ ≻ Marco asked. ≺There's people everywhere!≻

≺Screw people! I'm morphing on the parking lot!≻

≺Don't be stupid, Rachel! Everyone would see you, they'd shoot you before you're even human again!≻

≺There's no people on the roof, we can morph there,≻ Tobias pointed out.

≺How are we supposed to get from the roof to the basement?≻ Marco asked.

≺Uh, stairs?≻

≺In battle morphs, and in time!≻ he clarified. ≺That building is huge, and we don't even know what room Cassie's in!≻

I swerved around, helplessly looking for a better place to demorph. But there were people all over the university campus and hospital grounds. Like Marco said, morphing out in the open when there's Controllers with Dracon beams around would have been suicide.

Not that I wouldn't give my life for Cassie. I'd do so in a heartbeat. In fact, if anyone deserves to survive this war with the Yeerks, it's her. Even after all this time, she still wouldn't hurt a fly unless there was absolutely no other way. And I think she'd still prefer finding a way to peacefully coexist with the Yeerks over sending them running or killing them.

My point is, if this war ever ends in our favor, the world will need people like her to fix it. Not people like me.

But there's a difference between giving your life for someone and throwing it away.

≺Go to the roof,≻ I said. ≺Go to the roof and demorph, then morph the strongest animal you have that'll fit on stairs!≻

The roof was about a hundred feet wide, and probably around three times that long. There was a helipad on one end, and a small raised section with the roof access door on the other. That was our way in. It was probably locked, but that was nothing Marco and Jordan wouldn't be able to handle in their gorilla morphs.

I landed near the door and immediately started demorphing. Ax, Marco, Rachel, and Jordan joined me soon after. Tobias kept circling around above us to keep an eye out, though. He'd only have to morph once, after all.

We were about halfway demorphed when Erek started talking again.

≺Guys, morph back! Visser Three is about to land his Blade ship on the roof!≻

Visser Three. The only Yeerk to ever take an Andalite host, and therefore the most dangerous. In the most powerful Yeerk ship near Earth save for the mothership.

≺What?!≻

≺Is Cassie okay?!≻

≺What happened?!≻

≺Morph in which direction?!≻

≺Cassie, Jessica, Sharon, and Hank were stunned,≻ Erek explained. ≺The nearby Dracon stun fire temporarily disrupted my communication systems, so I couldn't get back to you until now. My invisibility hologram stayed active, so they don't seem to know I'm here, but I can't move without revealing myself yet. The Controllers just put Jessica on a stretcher to take her to the roof. Visser Three will be here shortly to take her to the mothership for questioning.≻

≺Then there's no way I'm stopping,≻ Rachel said. ≺I'm not letting Cassie be taken!≻

≺Prince Jake, I can continue morphing without risk of revealing your identities,≻ Ax said. ≺What should I do?≻

Marco responded long before I figured out what to say. ≺No, guys, we're no use to Cassie and Jessica if we're dead. We need a proper plan first if we're up against Visser Three. And Jessica's mom also knows too much, are they taking her, too?≻

≺No, Sharon and Hank will be taken to the Yeerk pool on Earth for infestation later,≻ Erek answered.

≺There's no time for a plan!≻ Rachel said. ≺I'm morphing elephant. I don't care what happens!≻

≺Rachel, you'll fall through the roof,≻ Jordan pointed out. ≺It wouldn't be the first –≻

≺I just saw a bird get hit by a cloaked ship!≻ Tobias interrupted. ≺Less than a mile, closing fast!≻

≺They're here _already?!_ ≻ Marco cried. ≺Jake, we need a plan, _right now!_ ≻

There was no time. Cassie was still alive, but there was no time!

≺We have to stop demorphing,≻ I said. ≺Do what Erek says and morph back to bird!≻

≺But they'll take Cassie!≻ Rachel accused.

≺We need a _real_ plan!≻ Marco yelled. ≺We can't let Cassie be taken!≻

≺Shut up and morph!≻

We barely finished in time. I'd only just sprouted my last tail feathers when I felt the wake of Visser Three's ship pass over us. Judging by its direction, the raised section of the roof had been between us and the ship during its approach, so they probably hadn't seen us yet.

But that was about to change.

To our left, a ramp lowered. It seemed to come out of nowhere, because the rest of the ship was still invisible. Two Hork-Bajir armed with Dracon beams materialized at the top of the ramp and started marching down.

To our right, the roof access door opened. Two nurses and a guard came out. The former were carrying Jessica on a stretcher, with Cassie in Yeerk morph inside her skull.

≺Cassie! Wake up!≻ Rachel called out, and flew right at one of the nurses. She was aiming for her eyes.

"Andalites!" the human guard yelled.

The nurse dropped the stretcher to shield her face, but was hit in the shoulder by Dracon fire before Rachel even reached her. The beam had just barely missed one of Rachel's wings.

It wasn't pretty. A handheld Dracon beam set to kill will blast a hole two inches wide right through you. The wall behind you, too. If it'd hit Rachel…

≺Rachel!≻ Jordan called out and flew toward her in complete panic. This was her first encounter with Controllers who were actively trying to kill us. I guess she'd intended to pull her sister away, but that doesn't work when you're a bird.

At the same time, Tobias charged the Hork-Bajir who'd shot at Rachel. Marco took off in the direction of the human guard, who was trying to pull out a normal gun.

≺What are you imbeciles shooting at? Did I order anyone to open fire?≻ Visser Three raged from inside his ship. Unlike us, Visser Three usually just calls out to everyone in range when he uses thought-speak.

≺Andalites! Shoot to kill!≻ he added a second later.

≺Prince Jake, what do we do?≻ Ax asked me. He was the only one aside from me who hadn't engaged yet.

He sounded scared. Ax very rarely sounds scared.

I wanted to do something. I wanted to rush at those Controllers and cause some damage. Anything to save Cassie.

But there just wasn't anything we _could_ do. Even if we'd stayed to fight them to our deaths, it wouldn't have changed anything. They'd still have taken her.

≺Retreat! We have to retreat! Everyone get out of here, find a place to morph seagull, then regroup by the parking lot!≻

I took off as quickly as I could, diving straight down when I got to the edge of the roof to gain speed quickly. I could see Ax do the same next to me, but I quickly lost sight of him. I didn't know if the rest of my friends had been able to get away.

The Yeerks stopped shooting at me pretty quickly. Maybe they just lost me because of the rain, or maybe Visser Three didn't want to risk people on the streets seeing the light show on the off chance that someone would actually hit me at that distance.

At least, that's what I tried telling myself. For all I knew, they stopped targeting me because they were busy picking off my friends.

I flew in a straight line away from the hospital for about a minute before finding a quiet alley to demorph in. I'd dived under a parked car, so I wouldn't be seen from the skies. It wouldn't exactly be comfortable, and it'd be really bad if someone would get in the car and drive away, but I didn't care.

We'd lost Cassie.

She'd probably stay in morph to hide our secrets from the Yeerks. So if we wouldn't be able to get to her in less than two hours, she'd never be able to morph back. If she'd even survive that long.

I was never going to see her again…

And my other friends… Did they make it out alive? It felt like I'd ditched them, but what else could I have done?

I'll admit, I didn't care about Jessica at first. In comparison, I mean; I'd only just met her yesterday. But as I forced myself to figure out what to do next, I realized she was actually a bigger problem than Cassie.

After all, if Cassie would just stay in Yeerk morph, the Yeerks might never even realize she's not a real Yeerk. But they could surely make Jessica talk. And we'd told her pretty much everything. She'd seen our faces, she'd been to the forest hideout… She'd even been to Erek's house, so not even the Chee were safe.

I guess we'd been careless. No, _I'd_ been careless. That's the thing about being a leader. It's your fault if something goes wrong.

I never asked to be the leader. The rest just somehow decided it was my job. Even Ax won't stop calling me his "prince," no matter how many times I tell him not to.

I don't know why. It's not like I magically know what to do when they don't.

I should've called it a day when we got Sharon to help us. There was no reason to keep going without first working out a proper plan. It just felt like we were so close to a breakthrough with Jessica's immunity… Being able to make people immune to Yeerk control would have been our first _real_ weapon against the Yeerks.

It's a good thing the alley was empty, because I completely broke down when I finished demorphing. Cassie was as good as dead, my other friends might be dead already, and the Yeerks would soon know all our secrets!

Whoever made it out alive would be expecting a plan when I'd return to the parking lot. What could I possibly tell them? There's nothing we can do anymore, so go back home, save your families, and hide?

Heck, would we even make it back in time? It took us over two hours to get here by car. Our secrets could be out within the hour.

How many days would we have left before the Yeerks would find us? I guess we _could_ hide indefinitely, especially if we'd get ourselves stuck in some pleasant morph… but surely the Yeerks would just find and torture everyone we've ever cared about until we'd surrender ourselves to them. And they probably wouldn't stop even then.

No matter how I tried to look at it, we just couldn't win anymore as soon as the Yeerks would know our identities. We might as well kill ourselves at that point.

But then… we might as well kill ourselves trying to keep them from finding out.

Maybe the others were right when they attacked the Yeerks on the roof. At the very least, if we all die in morph, without anyone ever finding out who we really are, our families wouldn't be treated any worse than any other human hosts.

We had to find a way to get aboard the Yeerk mothership.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

* * *

≺Is anyone here?≻ I asked when I got to the parking lot in my seagull morph.

≺Finally!≻ Marco responded angrily. ≺You'd better have a plan, Jake!≻

≺Is the rest here too?≻ I asked worriedly.

≺We're all here,≻ Tobias responded.

≺Except we're not _all_ here,≻ Rachel said. ≺How could you just let them take Cassie?!≻

≺Because there's nothing we could have done for her! If that Hork-Bajir had aimed a couple inches higher you'd be dust right now!≻

≺Yeah, great, now we'll all just be made Controllers when they find us, that's _so much_ better.≻

≺I know! Look, it's not much of a plan yet, and I have no idea if we're going to make it out alive… but we have to get to the mothership somehow. And we need to deal with Sharon, too. I'm… w-well, I'm not so worried about Cassie spilling our secrets, but Jessica and her mom…≻

I didn't get any snarky replies that time. Just silence.

≺Let's go back to Erek first,≻ I added. ≺Hopefully Visser Three is gone by now, but try to act natural.≻

They stayed silent, but followed. I guess everyone was getting to terms with the fact that we'd probably be dead or slaves soon.

It was hardly the first time we'd gone through that. We'd been cornered, captured, or otherwise almost dead several times already. But it was different this time, because we could still choose to not go through with it. To save ourselves, for the time being, anyway. But that'd mean leaving Cassie to her fate. I'd never forgive myself for that, and I'm sure the rest wouldn't, either.

≺Erek, are you still there?≻ I asked when we got close enough to the hospital.

≺Yes. Are you and your friends okay?≻

≺We're alive. Is Jessica's mom still there?≻

≺Yeah. There's a Bug fighter on its way to take Sharon and Hank to the Yeerk pool, the one underneath the city. They should be here in fifteen minutes or so.≻

≺That can take us to the mothership, right?≻ Rachel asked.

≺Yes, but it will be guarded.≻

≺Whatever, I can take them.≻

≺Rachel, they almost killed you just now…≻ Jordan said.

≺I just have to not be a stupid bird this time!≻

≺That's not the problem,≻ Erek added. ≺You can't just attack the Bug fighter's crew. The Taxxon pilot knows access codes that the mothership will verify on its approach, and you won't be able to threaten a Taxxon into submission. You also can't secretly board the ship, because the mothership scans all incoming ships for non-Controller lifeforms. They would not let a Bug fighter dock in one piece if there is so much as a fly on board that isn't accounted for. They would also detect me.≻

≺Great,≻ Marco mumbled after a few seconds of discouraged silence.

≺There is a way… Half of you could morph Yeerk and infest the other half. They wouldn't be able to tell the difference between you and real Controllers.≻

≺But only Cassie can morph Yeerk,≻ I noted.

≺You can acquire the Yeerk that I keep alive inside my body. But the hosts would need to be in human, Hork-Bajir, or Taxxon form to be believable.≻

≺Rachel and I have Hork-Bajir morphs…≻ Tobias said.

≺And Ax could go as his weird combo-morph of us,≻ Marco added. ≺So Jordan, Jake, and I would be the Yeerks, right?≻

≺I think all of us should get Yeerk morphs if we're doing this, just in case,≻ I said. ≺Can you move again, Erek?≻

≺Yeah, I'm okay now. The Yeerks moved Sharon and Hank to a room on the fourth floor; I'm currently in the storage room next to it. I'll open the window for you.≻

≺Sure, that won't look suspicious at all, a couple of seagulls flying into an open window one at a time,≻ Marco said.

≺For as far as the Controllers here know, Visser Three has already returned to the mothership. It should be safe enough. And you need to hurry if you want to do this before the Bug fighter arrives.≻

≺Good enough for me,≻ Rachel said, and flew in first. Jordan followed her closely. I went in next, and the rest followed behind me.

Erek had already disabled his human hologram. Without it, he looks sort of like a dog standing upright. He's mostly made of shiny metal, laced with a white material that could be ivory.

While I was demorphing, I watched Erek split his forehead open to reveal the chamber in which he keeps his Yeerk alive. It's part of his disguise, in a way. The Yeerks think he's a Controller.

≺Prince Jake, I…≻ Ax suddenly said, directing his thoughts only to me. ≺I respectfully cannot in good conscience carry out your orders.≻

Huh. That's never happened before.

I stopped demorphing. Once I'd be human, I'd lose my ability to thought-speak, and I figured Ax wouldn't want me to respond out loud.

≺What do you mean? What orders?≻

≺I cannot… I cannot let myself be infested. To willingly be infested by a Yeerk… It is the highest level of treason Andalite law defines. The penalty is death, as is the penalty for harboring someone guilty of it. I would never be able to return to my homeworld.≻

≺But we're not real Yeerks, right?≻

≺I could see how an exception could be made for an Andalite to take control of another Andalite by means of morphing a Yeerk… But to my knowledge, even that has never even been considered. And I am already in violation of several laws by serving under you at all…≻

≺But Ax, we need you up there with us… You're the only one who has even the slightest understanding of how Yeerk technology works. If you don't come with us, this is a suicide mission for sure…≻

≺I… You are my friends. I will do it if there is no other way. But I would ask you to try to come up with a different –≻

"So, who's gonna control who?" Marco unknowingly interrupted Ax. He'd just started acquiring Erek's Yeerk. "Dibs on Rachel," he added with a smile.

Rachel frowned at him. "In your dreams, Marco. Jordan can take me. Although I'd rather have it be the other way around…"

"M-me too…" Jordan said. She was clearly terrified.

"I thought you wanted to fight?" Rachel said somewhat harshly.

Jordan looked away, on the verge of crying. She's the youngest of us, after all, and had never been in an actual fight until a couple minutes ago. The only missions she'd been a part of so far were faking Rachel's death and guarding Cassie's house while Jessica was around.

It's not like she isn't tough. She's definitely made of the same stuff as Rachel, whatever that is… But I'm pretty sure even Rachel was scared at first. Heck, I think she still is, and just hides it a lot better than the rest of us.

In any case, I also didn't like the idea of Jordan being in control of one of us on a mission like this, having so little experience. I mean, this might have just been the most dangerous mission we'd ever willingly gone on. The few times we'd gone to the Yeerk pool came close, but at least that was on Earth. If the Yeerks figure us out while we're still on the mothership, there'd be nowhere for us to go.

≺I kind of have my doubts about this plan as well…≻ Tobias said. ≺It'd be pretty weird for two Hork-Bajir to show up in a place like this. I mean, this is a public place, why would they be here? And what if other Hork-Bajir recognize Ket Halpak and Jara Hamee? Just because we can't tell two Hork-Bajir apart doesn't mean they can't. And I'm sure every Hork-Bajir would have been shown pictures of them to scare them into submission. We'd look immediately suspicious.≻

We'd helped free those two Hork-Bajir several months ago. We'd faked their suicide so the Yeerks would stop hunting them. That's why Rachel and Tobias can morph them.

So Tobias made a really good point. I hadn't really thought of it, but it'd hardly be different from sending Rachel and Jordan up there without morphing.

I sighed, now almost completely demorphed. "I think we're going to need human morphs."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

* * *

Human morphs are kind of a sensitive subject. We're not very fond of the idea of using someone else's body, at least not without their explicit permission. It makes us feel a bit like Yeerks.

Sure, by morphing you become sort of a clone, and you don't get the person's memories, so it's not _exactly_ like a Yeerk. But still. I'm sure you wouldn't like it if I morphed into you and then robbed a bank, for instance.

But I had an idea. When Ax first showed up, he somehow acquired me, Marco, Rachel, and Cassie at the same time. That's the combo-morph Marco had talked about. It's a sort of uncanny mix between the four of us, but it's not recognizable. Ax never told us how he did it, but we never really bothered to ask, either.

"Ax, how did you acquire that strange human mix of us?"

≺It is possible to mix acquired DNA samples of compatible specimens together. The result is as though the specimens had children together, although the age of the morph is approximately that of the parent specimens. The – Marco, what is funny?≻

"Just, oh man," he chuckled. "Your human morph is what would happen if Jake and Cassie had a kid, Rachel and I had a kid, and they then had a kid together?"

Rachel walked up to Marco and pointed at him threateningly, but I think she wasn't sure what to say to that, because she backed off again.

Rachel and Marco are about as incompatible as two people can be, but Marco just loves to tease Rachel. Rachel is also very pretty, or I guess I would find her pretty if she weren't my cousin, so I'm sure _Marco_ would… Well.

I was mostly just blushing at the thought of me and Cassie, though…

≺I suppose you could look at it that way,≻ Ax said after staring at us for a moment. ≺But I fail to see the relevance.≻

"Need I remind you guys that the Bug fighter is on its way?" Erek said.

"Right, Ax, continue what you were saying," I said.

≺I was about to say that the original DNA samples are destroyed, which is why I had to reacquire you when I had to pretend to be you while you were taken host. It is also worth noting that the mix is random, so if each of you acquires everyone else, the resulting morphs will all be different.≻

"Okay, great, let's do that then." I thought for a moment. "Rachel takes Jordan, Ax can take Tobias, and I'll take Marco. Any objections?"

≺Thank you, Prince Jake,≻ Ax said to me privately. I smiled at him.

And so, we started acquiring each other. Acquiring someone takes about ten seconds, during which whoever you're acquiring gets very calm and sleepy.

The feeling of _being_ acquired while being so stressed out was really weird. Like, I knew I had every reason to want to cower in a corner and cry, but while being acquired it all just seemed to not matter somehow.

Ax also acquired the lot of us again, even though he'd made it pretty clear that he didn't want to be infested, and already had a combo-morph of us. Maybe he was embarrassed about objecting to my "orders."

Mixing the DNA samples together turned out to be as intuitive as morphing itself. You just think about it and it happens. It gave me a sort of vision of what my morph would look like, so I knew what to focus on to trigger the morphing process later. He looked like he could be a cousin of mine, but he didn't resemble anyone in particular.

"Oh man, I think my morph is a girl," Marco said.

Rachel groaned and held her face in her hands. "Of _course_ it is."

"Mine is a boy," Jordan said, blushing all the while.

"Ugh, let's just get this over with," Rachel added, and started morphing Yeerk.

I looked away. That was _not_ a morph I wanted to see. _Imagining_ what it would look like after hearing Cassie freak out while she was morphing earlier was bad enough. And I'd have to do it, too.

I closed my eyes and pictured the Yeerk in my mind. That's all it takes to morph. You keep morphing as long as you focus on the image.

You don't actually need to close your eyes. But I didn't really want to see _myself_ change, either.

I could feel and… taste it, though. Yeerks are pretty slimy, like Earth slugs. The first change I noticed was that my saliva was getting thicker and started tasting a bit like blood. I gagged, it was absolutely disgusting.

Then I noticed it wasn't just my saliva. The same thick guck got in my eyes, my nose, my ears, my sweat! Now I knew why Cassie was screaming, this was even worse than morphing a fly or an ant!

I couldn't scream anymore, though. I was literally choking on the stuff. I didn't feel like I needed to breathe anymore somehow, but my human instincts were still there. I tried to reach for my throat, but my arms had already shriveled away. All I could manage was some kind of flailing. I felt myself flop on the floor.

I was panicking so much that I'd stopped morphing for a couple seconds.

Focus on the Yeerk, Jake! Get out of this ungodly in-between state!

What seemed like an eternity later, my terrified human instincts finally made way for the Yeerk instincts.

Even though I was blind and couldn't hear, I could sense the room around me. It felt a bit like echolocation in dolphins and bats, but… real-time and near-sighted, if that makes any sense. I could make out the shape of the room and the people in it as they moved around, but things that were even just ten feet away from me were distorted and blurry.

It wasn't just shape information, though. There was something else, like I could sense what was alive and what was an inanimate object. Despite the blurry shapes, I could somehow tell exactly that there were two other Yeerks, two human males, one human female, and a… what _was_ that?

I figured it was Erek. But the Yeerk part of my mind was confused, and most of all intrigued.

Sometimes the instincts of a morph can be overwhelming, especially during the first few minutes. But I didn't have any trouble with the Yeerk. The way it seems to work is that intelligence goes along with weak instincts.

Its instincts felt somehow wrong, though. Very alien.

≺That morph was… highly unpleasant,≻ Ax stated. He's not usually bothered by the morphing process, but I guess this was an exception.

≺You can say that again!≻ Rachel agreed.

≺Let's hope we only need this morph once…≻ I said. ≺I think I'd rather morph _ant_ again… So who's who?≻

No response.

Duh. Yeerks are deaf, and for some reason we can't thought-speak when we're morphed into a human form. Not even Ax can, even though Andalites are naturally telepathic.

≺Uh, right, we can't hear you guys like this,≻ I added lamely.

The girl stepped toward me and reached out for me. Right, Marco _did_ say his morph was a girl.

I commanded my Yeerk instincts to craw onto her hand. Then the girl cautiously brought her hand to her right ear.

That's when my Yeerk instincts really kicked in. Before I knew it, I was inside her ear, shoving flesh aside with my Yeerk equivalent of a forehead, which I'd flattened to be as sharp as a knife. It was horrifying, but thankfully the whole process was sort of automatic.

Within seconds, I entered her skull. I felt her brain. I could no longer sense the room with my echolocation, because the electricity around me was overwhelming. I flattened myself to reach out along the folds and push myself between the lobes…

There! Those pulses of electricity were part of her hearing. I quickly figured out how they worked. The room I was in was silent, but I could hear the gentle hum of the air-conditioning, the rain outside, cars…

And there, smell. Sort of. The Yeerk instincts were not all that impressed by that. Most species have a better sense of smell than humans do.

Slowly but surely, I tapped into all her senses. Sight, touch, temperature, taste, and so on.

Motor skills came next. I had complete control over her body in no-time.

Then came the thoughts.

– _is what it feels like to be infested. I wouldn't recommend it._ ≺Jake, are you there yet?≻

It was weird. I could sense both his private and shared thoughts. The shared ones felt almost like talking to someone privately using thought-speak, but the private ones were something else.

≺Yeah, sort of,≻ I responded somehow.

"Jordan and I are ready," a male voice said. He didn't sound very comfortable, though.

He reminded me a bit of my brother, Tom. I instinctively searched my host's mind for more information about this boy, but there was nothing there.

Right, of course not.

– _is he doing now? Tick-tock, tick-tock, Jake. Come on._ ≺You _sure_ you're all there?≻

≺Y-yeah, my Yeerk instincts for controlling and getting to know you are a little strong. Sorry.≻

– _Well, my_ human _instincts for getting to know this girl are also pretty strong… –_

For Marco's sake, I won't describe to you what he imagined exactly.

≺Marco, for crying out loud…≻

≺What?≻ he responded innocently. – _Oh man, did he see that? He didn't see that, right? –_

I looked at my reflection in the window. I guess you could say I was pretty attractive. Long, blond hair like Rachel, but somewhat more curly. I had brown eyes. My face kind of reminded me of one of my other cousins. I suppose it made sense that all of our new morphs would look like they could be family of mine, considering they _were_ three-quarters my family.

I was thankfully dressed in normal clothes. When we morph into something, we can sort of take skintight clothing with us, so it reappears when we morph back. But these were brand-new morphs. Erek probably made the clothes for us with his hologram stuff while we morphed. Fortunately, his holograms keep working even when he's out of range to interact with them.

"We're also ready, sort of…" I said. Or, I guess, I made Marco's morph say. His voice – or should I say _her?_ – was kind of soft and shy, not at all like Rachel's or Jordan's.

I'll be honest, it was pretty confusing. I had my own thoughts, Marco's thoughts, my Yeerk's instincts, and the girl instincts of Marco's morph all fighting for space in my head. Speech ended up being mostly controlled by the girl's instincts.

"As are we," the second boy said. Okay, that formality was clearly Ax. But at least he wasn't playing with the words like he usually does. Like, repeating words with different emphasis and stuff. When he's in a human morph directly, he just can't help himself for some reason. But a Yeerk's instincts for talking like its host normally would are pretty strong.

"Good, then follow my lead," Erek said as he re-enabled his human hologram. He'd made himself look like an adult male wearing a security uniform instead of his usual self. "The ship is almost here."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

* * *

Erek held the door open for us, then locked it once we were all in the hallway. He must have made a hologram version of the key to get inside in the first place.

Then he walked over to the room where they were keeping Sharon and Hank. When he opened the door, the two Controllers who were inside immediately pointed their Dracon beams at him. But he didn't flinch.

"I'll take over after you take the humans to the Bug fighter, so you can stay at your posts," he said determinedly. "On an unrelated note, the three humans behind me need to go to the mothership for engineering duty."

The guards shrugged, lowered their Dracon beams, and let us walk inside. "Great, they can help carry them, then," one of them said. That was easy.

≺Won't they question this at all?≻ I asked Erek.

≺Nah,≻ Erek responded. ≺Yeerks don't tend to question orders, even if they're passed on by other Controllers. Questioning things usually doesn't end well for them, and while Yeerks _do_ go rogue sometimes, it is rare.≻

Sharon and Hank were both awake already, but they'd been cuffed. Sharon was weeping silently, while Hank seemed mostly just confused.

"Will someone please tell me what's going on?" he asked the guards. "I have rights, you know."

One of the guards Dracon-stunned him in response. Sharon jerked up and squealed, but was quickly downed as well.

"You will find out soon enough, humans," he said with a grin that made me want to punch his lights out. Then, turning to us, he added, "Put them on those stretchers."

We looked at Sharon and Hank. They seemed way too heavy for us to carry, and to my surprise, Erek didn't step in to help.

≺Could you, you know, lend a hand?≻ Rachel asked Erek.

≺No, it'd seem weird. I'm supposed to act like I rank above them, and the way I introduced you, you certainly rank below them.≻

≺Oh, great.≻

"Hurry up, grubs," the second guard chuckled while we were trying to figure out where to even begin.

"Yeah, the transport will be here soon," the first added.

"Don't keep them waiting, or you'll _all_ be wearing brown," Erek said.

I wasn't sure what they meant exactly, but I knew what it felt like. They were bullying us. Although Erek seemed to be referring to the two guards as well.

≺Well, this is nice,≻ Marco thought to me.

≺Yeah, terrific. If I wanted to be bullied, I could have just gone to school with a "kick me" note taped to my back.≻

We ended up having to _drag_ Sharon and Hank onto the stretchers. It took all three of us to do one of them at a time, and still we probably hurt them and definitely messed up their clothes. It felt so wrong, but there was no way around it.

"You two can carry the man, you two carry the woman, you walk ahead." Erek directed. He'd assigned one of the guards and Ax to Hank, and me and Rachel to Sharon. "And hurry up, I don't have all day."

I could only barely lift my end of the stretcher. It hurt my back, arms, and fingers, but again, there was no way around it.

The guard escorted us to the service elevator. We got some confused looks from a nurse here and there, but there weren't a lot of people around.

Then we just waited on the roof. The guards made us stand outside, in the rain, while they and Erek stood in the short hallway between the service elevator and the roof access door.

I looked over the scene that our short fight with the Yeerks left behind. There were several scorched holes in the roof that were certainly causing a mess on the level below, and the puddle of water we were standing in was still red from when the nurse got accidentally Draconed.

At least the Yeerks would have a hard time explaining all this, I guess.

≺Couldn't our last moment on Earth have been a nice, warm sunset on the beach?≻ Marco asked me.

I ignored him. I wasn't in the mood for his jokes.

≺Man, I wish I could thought-speak to the others directly. Rachel would have at least groaned at that.≻

≺How's everyone holding up?≻ I asked the group.

≺Just great,≻ Rachel responded. ≺I _love_ standing around in the rain while controlling some awkward guy my sister morphed into, waiting to fly to our deaths, in order to try to save my best friend from certain doom.≻

≺Tobias and I are also uncomfortable,≻ Ax said.

Fortunately, we didn't have to wait long. A Bug fighter appeared out of thin air right in front of us about a minute later.

Bug fighters, well, they kind of look like a bug. One that's about the size of a bus, wielding two spears. The spears, as we've experienced, can shoot powerful Dracon beams.

There'll probably be a Hork-Bajir Controller or two on board for security. Hork-Bajir are terrifyingly strong creatures, with natural armored bodies and blades protruding all over the place. They're bipeds like humans, but they look more like a dinosaur. Their snake necks stand out in particular. They're actually social, kind-hearted herbivores when they're not Controllers, but they _will_ be Controllers.

From what Erek said before, I figured it'd be piloted by a Taxxon Controller. Taxxons are kind of like supersized centipedes. They are, for some reason, willing hosts, and they wouldn't think twice to eat their own kind if one of them dies near them. So, unlike Hork-Bajir, they aren't merely creepy because of their looks or because of the Yeerk inside them. They're the stuff of nightmares in general.

In a nutshell, a Bug fighter is not a nice place to find yourself in. And this was just the beginning. I'd much rather have spent the rest of the day with those two human guards.

A ramp extended, and the cargo doors opened. Erek took one end of Hank's stretcher, then waited for the rest of us to pick up our ends. "You two, return the stretchers to where you found them when we're done with them," he said to the guards behind us, while we were breaking our bodies trying to lift Sharon and Hank up again.

When we got to the ramp of the Bug fighter, Erek thankfully commanded two Hork-Bajir from the ship to take over for us.

They didn't bother with the stretchers. A Hork-Bajir can easily lift an adult human; they can lift two if they have to. We nervously followed them inside.

The inside of the ship consisted of three rooms. The ramp led to the room in the back, which was clearly intended for cargo. It was filled with a weird mixture of human-like wooden crates and more sci-fi-looking metal containers. There was also a third, armed Hork-Bajir in there.

The Hork-Bajir opened the doors to the middle room of the ship and put Hank and Sharon inside. Its inner walls seemed to be made of featureless black steel, dimly lit by some hidden light source.

A Yeerk prison cell. We'd been inside one of those the last time we went up to the mothership.

I could still see Sharon and Hank when the Hork-Bajir closed the door. It was almost like it wasn't even there. Like one-way glass, but better.

Then Erek entered the narrow hallway along the left side of the cell, leading to the front room, which would be the bridge. I could hear the Taxxon pilot hiss something at him from there. That's how Taxxons talk. They can't speak like we do, so they speak in their own language.

"Take me and the prisoners to the pad near entrance four-A of the _Kel Kesh_ pool," Erek responded. "The others need to go to the mothership to receive their designations."

The Taxxon hissed something again. Then the ramp retracted and the cargo doors closed behind me. A few seconds later we felt a slight jerk, and heard a humming sound. We'd lifted off.

The ship didn't have anything that was designed to sit on, so I awkwardly sat down on one of the crates. The rest did, too.

There wasn't really anything to look at, either. I couldn't see much through the windshield because the Taxxon was in the way for the most part, and there were no windows in the rear section. I didn't want to look at Sharon and Hank, and it felt weird to look at the Hork-Bajir. So I decided to just look down and stare at my soaking wet shoe holograms.

The rain had made my hair stick to my back. I tried pulling it back, but it didn't really improve the situation. Apparently, long hair is about as annoying to have as it looks. My neck, shoulders, and back hurt from the cold and carrying too much weight, and being soaking wet made it hard to ignore that I wasn't exactly wearing the kind of clothes that I normally would.

All that discomfort made it so hard to stay in character. Three sets of terrified and uncomfortable thoughts and instincts versus the relatively calm, but very alien Yeerk instincts. I was sweating buckets, despite feeling like I was going to freeze to death before the Yeerks could even get to me.

≺When we get back to our city, I'll take care of Sharon and Hank,≻ Erek started explaining. ≺You'll stay behind on the Bug fighter. Once you're on the mothership, I recommend that you ask someone wearing a brown uniform for directions to the engineering barracks. Say you're new Controllers from the _Kel Kesh_ pool with training in engineering. In the barracks, you'll get blue uniforms, designations, and an access token that _should_ get you through most doors and maintenance hatches on the ship. The maintenance areas will be important to you, because they usually don't have non-Controller sensors. So you can remorph there when the need arises.≻

≺But would we not be expected to know our way around the ship if we supposedly have engineering training?≻ Ax asked.

≺Yes. I put a device in your pockets that allows us to stay in touch using thought-speak, as long as everyone stays within range of at least one of them. So I'll be able to help you from here. I've shaped them to fit inside your ears, so put them there when no one's looking before you change into your uniforms. Unless the Yeerks have some top-secret technology that I don't know about, which is very unlikely, they should not be able to detect the device or its transmissions.≻

≺That's actually really cool,≻ Marco thought to me.

≺Yeah, except this isn't a _James Bond_ movie and our lives are on the line,≻ I thought back. ≺If we slip up…≻

≺Thanks, now I'm scared again.≻

≺Do you know where they'll be keeping Jessica and Cassie?≻ Rachel asked.

≺No,≻ Erek responded. ≺I'm afraid you'll have to find out when you get there. Make sure to take note of the uniforms that the people around you are wearing. Their color roughly indicates rank. Brown is used by janitors and servants. They rank below you, so you can safely ask them stuff and order them around. You'll be wearing blue, indicating engineering and maintenance. Silver is for security. Light blue means command. Finally, Visser Three's personal soldiers wear red-and-black uniforms. There's a couple other colors, but those are the most important ones. Expect everyone who isn't wearing a brown uniform to rank above you.≻

The ship jerked slightly again, and the hum died down. Then the doors opened and the ramp extended. What had taken two hours by car apparently took less than three minutes by Bug fighter.

I looked outside. We were on a roof again. It took me a couple seconds to get my bearings, but then I recognized the surroundings. This was the roof of the mall. Apparently the Yeerks had already repaired the secret access tunnels that Rachel destroyed two weeks ago.

"Just put them on the roof," Erek commanded. "I'll take it from there."

The Hork-Bajir stared at Erek. They seemed confused.

"Don't let my lack of a uniform fool you, soldiers," Erek snapped at them. "Put them on the roof, then leave. Got it?"

To that, the Hork-Bajir silently obeyed. When they were done, the cargo doors closed again, leaving Erek, Sharon, and Hank alone on the roof. Then the ship jerked into drive again.

We were on our own now.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

* * *

We didn't talk much at first. I think we were all lost in thought about the last time, when we'd been in a cell just like the one five feet away from us.

We weren't prisoners this time. Not yet, anyway. But it didn't feel any different.

Marco was mostly thinking about his mother, Eva. Until our last time in the mothership, he'd thought that she was dead. Then, when they opened that ramp to reveal the cargo bay of the mothership, she was there. Right next to Visser Three. She was host to Visser One.

Vissers are the Yeerk equivalent of generals, I guess. Each commands an army, to fulfill some greater mission for the Yeerk Empire. The lower the number, the higher the rank.

Visser Three and Visser One don't like each other one bit. In fact, the only reason we got out of the mothership alive that time was because Visser One secretly ordered our release within her own private army.

Not to help us or Marco, mind you. Obviously she doesn't know Marco is one of their infamous Andalite bandits. She did it to make it seem like Visser Three lost us somehow, so he would seem incompetent to their superiors.

On one of our more recent missions we found out that Visser One was overseeing a different operation on Earth. Its goal was to breed sharks that can be infested by Yeerks, to aid in an ongoing invasion of the Leeran homeworld. Leerans are an aquatic species, and Hork-Bajir can't swim very well, so the Yeerks needed new soldiers of some kind.

In any case, we ended up destroying the underwater base they were operating from. We didn't know if Marco's mom made it out alive. Although, since Visser Three was still just Visser Three, it was pretty likely that at least her Yeerk survived.

We also know that Visser One initiated the Earth invasion, so Marco's mom had probably been a Controller for years already when the Yeerks faked her death.

≺We'll free her someday, Marco,≻ I thought to him.

≺I wish I still believed that.≻

I peered through the hallway a couple times to try to see through the windshield, but whenever the Taxxon wasn't in the way, all I could see was the inky blackness of space. The inside of the Bug fighter was too brightly lit to make out any stars, and the mothership would be cloaked, just like all other Yeerk ships.

≺Erek, can you still hear us?≻ Rachel asked at some point.

≺Yup, the transmitters are working.≻

≺How's everything going down there?≻ I asked.

≺As soon as the Bug fighter was out of sight, I made us invisible and carried Sharon and Hank to the forest hideout. I guess I'll have to make this place a little bigger now. They haven't woken up yet, but I'll tell them what's going on when they do.≻

Then I stared at one of the Hork-Bajir for a little while. He didn't seem to care. He was wearing a silver uniform, so that would be security, ranking above me.

I thought about all the times I had to fight one of those monsters. How I'd felt those blades pierce my flesh in various battle morphs. About how sad it is that we've had to kill some of them for it on various occasions. Nature had only intended their blades to be used to strip bark from trees.

≺Thinking about Cassie?≻ Marco thought to me. ≺You got all sad.≻

≺I've been trying to distract myself from thinking about her, actually…≻

≺We'll get her out. We _have_ to.≻

I could tell he was trying to comfort me, but that's not exactly Marco's strong suit. What he said just made me more nervous.

≺Thanks,≻ I said anyway.

I looked away from the Hork-Bajir and turned to my friends instead.

Ax was staring ahead of himself with a vacant expression, sitting completely still. Rachel, on the other hand, was nervously fumbling with the bottom of her shirt, and shifted around on her crate every few seconds. She seemed more annoyed than scared, but I knew better than that.

I wanted to say something to try to break the tension, but I didn't know what. Marco and Cassie are the ones who'd normally do that. Marco with his silly jokes, and Cassie with her endless kindness and sympathy…

I looked to my left again, past the Taxxon pilot. I could see dimly lit walls through the windshield now.

Finally. It's much easier to ignore the pain of possibly having lost Cassie when there are things to do.

≺I think we're almost there,≻ I said to the group.

As I expected, the hum of the engines died down a minute or so later. We felt the by now familiar jerk of the Bug fighter settling down, and watched the Hork-Bajir open the cargo doors to the cargo bay of the mothership.

The last time we were here, there were hundreds, if not thousands of soldiers clad in red-and-black and gold-and-black uniforms standing at attention to the two Vissers. Now the cargo bay was mostly deserted.

Ax took the lead. Rachel and I followed him outside. As soon as we stepped off the ramp, it started retracting again.

For a minute or so, we just stood there, intimidated by the sheer scale of it all.

Just this cargo bay was the size of a football stadium in all directions. There were dozens of disused Bug fighters parked around us. Scattered between the ships were various things that could be fuel tanks, small shacks with electrical equipment inside, and lots more crates.

There was a Gedd wearing a brown uniform nearby. He was cleaning one of the Bug fighters without paying any attention to us.

Gedds are creatures from the Yeerk homeworld. They sort of look like blue apes. I'm told they're pretty clumsy, don't have very keen senses, and aren't very smart, so they're not exactly the preferred hosts of the Yeerks. But I guess they're easy for them to come by.

The sound of the Bug fighter taking off behind us snapped us out of our trances.

≺So, what do we do now?≻ Rachel asked.

≺Let's ask that Gedd over there where we need to go, like Erek said,≻ I responded, and took the lead.

"Hi, um…" I said. It was so weird to hear a soft girl's voice when I talked!

He stopped what he was doing and turned to me. "Chir?" he asked. I think he was trying to say "sir," which is a bit odd, considering I was in a girl's body, but fine.

"We're new Controllers for the engineering division. Do you know where we need to go?"

"Enghenheering bahrackg ahr ovher chere, chir," he pointed.

"Thank you," I said. I realized the moment I'd said it that I shouldn't have. The Gedd clearly wasn't expecting me to be polite to him, and wasn't sure how to respond.

"Hah, you won't make it very far with that attitude," Rachel sneered at me and started walking. ≺You're not supposed to be nice to them, stupid,≻ she then scolded me using thought-speak. ≺Haven't you been paying attention?≻

≺Right, I know,≻ I thought back, and followed him – no, _her_ , awkwardly. ≺I swear, it's this body I'm controlling. She's so shy somehow.≻

≺Maybe you should let _me_ do the talking, then.≻

≺This is _so_ weird,≻ Marco thought to me.

It was a few minutes' walk to even get to exit of the cargo bay that the Gedd had pointed us to. We had to hurry.

≺Ax, how long has Cassie been in morph?≻ I asked. Andalites can keep time very accurately.

≺Cassie has used up forty-five percent of her time.≻

So we only had a little over an hour left. We _really_ had to hurry.

There was another Gedd dressed in brown by the exit. He stood at attention to us.

"Hey, you, where are the engineering barracks?" Rachel asked him.

The Gedd turned to a screen embedded in the wall near him. He pushed a few buttons to pull up what was presumably a map, and then silently pointed at it.

I kind of stared at it. I had no idea where we were on the map, what the scale was, or how to even read it in the first place.

≺Does anyone know what to do with this?≻

≺Yes, I know the way now,≻ Ax said, and took the lead.

We left without thanking the Gedd.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

* * *

The way to the barracks was another ten minutes' walk, leading us through numerous hallways and dropshafts, the Yeerk equivalent of elevators. They make you weightless, and then levitate you to where you want to go just by thinking it.

And then all we found was a locked door.

≺Seriously?≻ Rachel said.

≺Erek, the door that we think leads to the barracks is locked, what do we do?≻

≺There should be something resembling a doorbell next to the door. Press it. It's an intercom.≻

I did. A moment later we heard a human voice answer us. "Engineering," he said.

"We're new Controllers from the… _Kel Kesh_ pool. Were here for our designations?" Rachel said.

The voice groaned. Then the door opened. It led to yet another long hallway with countless doors on either side of it.

One of the nearby doors opened as well. A man wearing a blue uniform came out and gestured for us to follow him. The door to the barracks closed behind us automatically.

"I'm Ekfis four. You report to me. I wasn't expecting new recruits, and this is kind of a bad time to show you the ropes. We have a bit of a situation on our hands here. Visser Three just killed three of our Taxxon coworkers in one of the laboratories, leaving quite some equipment unmanned and damaged. Which, of course, is our fault somehow. But someone must have informed the Council or something, because they ordered Visser Three to back off and make place for Visser One. With both of them on the ship and tensions this high, we can expect quite a bit more Dracon damage to repair soon. Let's just hope they don't tear the whole ship apart. I hate politics."

The three of us were looking at each other behind his back, almost in shock. He sounded like a normal person, pretty much. Not at all like the warmongering psychopaths we usually encounter. But he was definitely a Controller, and he had no reason to act like his host.

Cassie had been saying it for a while now. How she figured that most Yeerks are also just, well, people. I mostly just didn't want to think about it. It's a lot easier to fight something that you consider to be… well, _not_ people. But Marco was absolutely shocked.

Ekfis stopped in front of us and unlocked one of the doors using a little device that looked sort of like a credit card, but smaller. "This room was designated to the Taxxons until about ten minutes ago. It's yours now. You'll have to change it around for your hosts' anatomy yourself. I trust you know how from your training?"

"Yes, sir," we all said, sort of in unison.

He continued walking again, all the way to the end of the hall. It opened up into a larger room. It looked a bit like the school's cafeteria, but bigger. "This is the mess hall. I'm assuming your host's families aren't expecting you back home, so you'll spend your off-duty time here. Starting now, because I have no idea what to do with you yet."

He then walked us over to some machine embedded in a nearby wall. "Sign-in is over here. Ekfis four," he said to the machine, making the screen light up. Then he pushed buttons for a little while.

"You three will be Ekfis twenty-one-five-six through eight," he eventually continued. "The nourishment dispenser is over there. Any questions?"

"U-um… We're pretty anxious to see the ship, sir," I tried. "We –"

Ekfis rolled his eyes at me. "Look, fine, I don't really care. Just don't break anything, and try not to get the rest of us in trouble by angering Command or the Vissers' troops. Got it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Anything else? No? Good. I'll be in my office, trying to work out how to magically make three new Taxxons appear in this backwater of a star system." With that, he left. There were some Taxxon, human, and Gedd Controllers in the mess hall, but they didn't seem to care much about us, either.

≺Well, that was stupidly easy,≻ I said.

≺The Yeerks must not be anticipating an attack like this,≻ Ax said. ≺They probably assume that we do not have Yeerk morphs. Although I think Ekfis four isn't following protocol very closely. It is likely that he will be executed when the Yeerks inevitably find out about us. We are simply lucky.≻

≺Ugh, why doesn't that make me feel lucky?≻ I said.

≺He's still a Yeerk, Jake,≻ Rachel said, stepping over to the sign-in thing. ≺He stole that guy's body. Who knows who he left behind?≻

≺I know, fine. Let's just get on with it.≻

≺So how does this work?≻

≺Let me,≻ Ax said. He looked at it for two seconds, and then pushed a couple buttons on the screen. If only everything was marked in English, but it was using some other language.

"Ekfis twenty-one-five-six," he said out loud. Then the machine came to life and spat out a uniform in his size. Complete with one of those access tokens. He took it from the tray. ≺The machine recognizes you by voiceprint. Just press the rectangle at the bottom-left of the screen and speak your designation.≻

≺Okay, um…≻ Rachel said, and pushed the button. "Ekfis twenty-one-five-seven?"

The machine complied. Then I did the same. "Ekfis twenty-one-five-eight."

≺I feel just like a real host now,≻ Marco thought to me. ≺Not pleased to meet you, Ekfis twenty-one-five-eight.≻

Despite how scared and worried I was, I couldn't help but grin at that.

We took our uniforms to the Taxxons' room to change. The room was empty, aside from three slimy metal half-tubes on the floor.

≺Gross, what in the world are those?≻ Rachel asked.

≺Taxxon beds,≻ Ax said simply. He then reached into his pocket, took out the thought-speak device, put it in his ear, and promptly started to undress.

"Ugh," Rachel groaned. She turned away from Ax and also started to undress.

I turned as well.

≺Heh, first time undressing a girl,≻ Marco joked.

≺Shut up, Marco.≻


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

* * *

≺Erek, we have our uniforms, and we're outside the barracks. Now what?≻ Rachel asked.

≺I don't really know,≻ he responded. ≺Cassie and Jessica could be anywhere. I'm sorry.≻

≺We're engineers, right? So we should be able to find out what stuff Visser Three broke,≻ Marco thought to me. ≺That could be a lead.≻

I repeated it for the rest to hear. ≺We could ask Ekfis four, I guess,≻ I added.

≺No need,≻ Ax said. ≺I believe these maps should be able to tell us where the damage is.≻ He walked over to a nearby screen and started pushing buttons. ≺Found it. Follow me.≻

Another long walk. About half an hour left, I guessed.

When we left the final dropshaft, we entered into a hallway filled with Controllers, mostly human, wearing gold-and-black uniforms. Visser One's soldiers.

≺Jackpot,≻ Marco thought to me.

≺I believe this is a science deck,≻ Ax said, as he started walking along the hallway. ≺If the Yeerks are already aware that Jessica is immune to Yeerk control, it is likely that this is where they are investigating why.≻

≺Okay. Let's keep our eyes open,≻ I said.

≺Of course,≻ Ax said, confused. ≺Never mind,≻ he added a moment later. Tobias must have explained that it's an idiom. He's still not very good at those.

Along the way, we passed a closed door with two huge Hork-Bajir standing guard next to it. Like, bigger than normal Hork-Bajir. I stared at the door a little too long.

"What _graffar_ looking at?" one of the guards said.

Hork-Bajir usually talk in a mixture of their native language and English. I think it's because their native language only has a couple hundred words, so it's not advanced enough for Yeerk society.

≺My Hork-Bajir is a little rusty, but I don't think that was a compliment,≻ Marco said. I quickly followed the others again.

≺Cassie, are you here somewhere?≻ I tried using thought-speak, but there was no response.

≺Yeerk cells are shielded, Prince Jake,≻ Ax told me. ≺She would not be able to hear you if she is in one of them.≻

≺Well, with that kind of guard, they're either guarding Jessica and Cassie or Visser One,≻ Rachel noted.

≺Maybe,≻ I said.

≺The damage is over here,≻ Ax said. He was a bit ahead of us. "We have been ordered to inspect the damage. Permission to –"

"Go away," one of Visser One's human Controllers said. Actually, he'd used more colorful language. His hand was already reaching for his weapon.

"Yes, sir," Ax said through his teeth, clearly having a hard time not to let his deep hatred for Yeerks show, and quickly moved on. ≺It appears that Visser One's Controllers are not as easily swayed as Ekfis four,≻ he grumbled. ≺But I saw the inside of the room. It is an operating room designed for human anatomy. There was… I am not sure Jessica is still alive.≻

≺What do you mean? Why?≻ Rachel asked, panicked. I don't know if Rachel cared much for Jessica, but we've never seen a Yeerk survive the death of its host.

≺I saw a severed hand and what looked to be the top of a human skull. They could well have been Jessica's.≻

I was about to pass the room and look inside, but I decided against it after hearing that. Did they… did they try to remove Cassie by force…? Were we too late?

Rachel stopped walking, and yelled something in our minds that I won't repeat. ≺They killed her! Cassie –≻ She squeezed her eyes shut and looked like she was about to lose control and explode.

I quickly grabbed her hand and pulled her along. ≺We don't know that yet,≻ I tried reassuring her. ≺It could belong to some random Controller that got in the way of one of the Vissers. Come on.≻

In front of us, Ax was pushing buttons on a map panel. Then he turned back to us, towards the dropshaft, and gestured for us to follow. ≺There is a maintenance level below this one. We should be able to overhear conversations on this level and access the science computer banks from there.≻

Good. A place without Controllers and surveillance around would be nice right now. Like Rachel, I very much wanted a chance to drop my poker face.

The dropshaft took us down only a few feet, barely more than we were tall. There didn't seem to be a way to disembark at first, but Ax promptly swiped his token along a small device hidden in a corner, which automatically hinged a wall panel open.

It opened up into a huge room. We couldn't even see the walls, and it seemed to wrap around the dropshaft. There were rusty metallic support pillars in a grid spaced about four feet apart for as far as we could see, with all kinds of strange equipment, piping, and wiring between them. We could only barely stand upright, so adults would have to crawl. Lights were few and far between. Everything was caked in a thick layer of dust.

≺Well, isn't this just the perfect place to shoot a horror movie,≻ Marco complained.

≺How do we find our way around here? This is a maze!≻ I said to everyone.

≺Look at the ceiling,≻ Ax simply said, and started walking. ≺The walls of the level above us are clearly visible.≻

I looked up, but I had no idea what Ax was talking about. There were all kinds of patterns in the metal frame, and there was wiring everywhere, but nothing reminded me of the hallway above us. It'd have been a lot easier if the hallway had been straight, but it wasn't.

Behind us, the panel clicked shut. It was just an automated system, I'm sure, but I jumped nonetheless. So did Rachel.

≺Hah, look, even Xena is scared,≻ Marco said. ≺If only I could tease her right now. That'd make me feel a lot better. At least _that'd_ be normal.≻

I ignored him. I _really_ wasn't in the mood for his jokes anymore.

Eventually Ax took a right turn and then stopped, still looking up at the ceiling. ≺I am now underneath the operating room.≻

≺No kidding! Look!≻ Rachel pointed.

I gasped when I realized what she was looking at. There was blood dripping from the ceiling. Human blood.

≺Okay, correction, we are _in_ a horror movie,≻ Marco joked.

≺Marco, shut up!≻ I shouted back at him. ≺This isn't funny.≻

I was genuinely upset. Who wouldn't be? Marco was, too. I knew this was just his way of dealing with it, but I just couldn't take it at the time.

≺Okay, look, man. I'm sorry,≻ he said after a couple seconds. ≺I'll be honest, since I can't lie to you right now anyway. I don't really know how to deal with this situation. And this girl's instincts are messing with my mind. I'm really just trying to distract myself from… pretty much everything, yeah. But if you need to talk, I'm still your best friend. Okay?≻

≺Thanks,≻ I said, and involuntarily sighed. ≺But we have a job to do right now.≻

≺I believe I should be able to access the computer banks from this panel,≻ Ax said a moment later. He didn't seem too fazed by the blood, and had been looking at the various instrument panels and machinery around us. ≺If the Yeerks have already found out what substance is making Jessica immune, I should be able to learn what it is from here.≻

≺If I'm following along right, you're _underneath_ the lab right now, because the Yeerks are guarding the lab itself?≻ Erek pitched in. ≺The mothership has three laboratory decks. They're hardly ever used, so chances are good you won't face any resistance in the other two. If the Yeerks have already figured out the substance, you could use the replicator in one of the other labs to make more of it in the form of injection patches. Then you may be able to use that as a "weapon," for lack of a better word.≻

≺Great,≻ Rachel said, clearly upset. ≺Can we focus on getting Cassie back first, please? If she's even still alive?≻

≺I agree with Rachel,≻ I said. ≺How much time does she have left before she has to morph?≻

≺Cassie has used up eighty-three percent of her time,≻ Ax said.

≺A little over twenty minutes left,≻ Erek quickly translated for us.

≺Can you take us to the area underneath the room with the guards, Ax?≻ I asked.

I'll be honest, that was the only idea I had. I'd figured we might get lucky and overhear something.

≺Yes, Prince Jake,≻ he responded, and started walking. Rachel and I followed.

A minute or so later he stopped again. ≺I am now underneath the room with the Hork-Bajir guards.≻ He hunched down and started examining some of the equipment around us.

I stared at the ceiling. I could have been staring right at Cassie and Jessica, both probably mortally wounded or dead, with only a metal frame to separate us. So close, yet so far… But it could just as well have been Visser One who the Hork-Bajir had been guarding.

I focused my hearing. But all I could hear was the whirring of nearby equipment. There wasn't even any sci-fi beeping like you always hear on TV. Just a low, eerie hum.

≺So, what now?≻ Rachel asked me.

≺I don't know…≻ I said helplessly.

Rachel sat down on the ground and covered her face. I half expected her to be angry with me for not knowing what to do, but then I heard her sniff. She was trying not to cry.

I sat next to her and put my arm around her, but she shook it off and looked at me, trying to act tough again. ≺This is ridiculous, there has to be _something_ we can do, right?≻

"Yes?" we heard above us before I could respond. I recognized the voice. Marco definitely did.

≺Mom!≻ he yelled in my head. ≺She's still alive!≻

"Visser One, incoming transmission from the Council," a voice said over an intercom. "Shall I patch it through?"

"Go ahead."

"Visser One, report," a distorted voice said a few seconds later.

"I have successfully assumed control over project six-five-three. The subject is still alive, but barely. I have instructed my best science personnel to keep her that way until we find an antidote. That is all."

A loud click hinted that the connection was dropped immediately after she finished.

"That incompetent moron will be the end of all of us," Visser One added, seemingly to herself.

≺Prince Jake, the room above us houses several Yeerk prison cells,≻ Ax said immediately after Visser One finished. ≺Look.≻

I tiptoed over to him and looked at what he was pointing at. A monitor. Ax had managed to get it to display a video feed from one of the cells.

What was left of Jessica was lying inside of it.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

* * *

It took every inch of me not to throw up.

≺Is she conscious?!≻ Rachel shrieked in our heads.

Jessica's eyes were open, and we could see her breathe and blink occasionally. We could also see her brain, with what I assumed to be Cassie wrapped around it. It was protected only by a sort of plastic bag that they'd taped along where they'd cut her skull away.

≺How is she even alive?!≻ I added.

≺Definitely a horror movie, definitely a horror movie…≻ I heard Marco in my head.

Then we heard the click of a panel opening behind us.

≺What was that?!≻ Rachel jumped.

≺ _Definitely_ a horror movie!≻ Marco added.

I quickly jerked around and moved to get a view of the dropshaft access panel through the mess of pillars, piping, and machinery. Two human Controllers wearing red-and-black uniforms came in. They were headed right for us!

≺Hide!≻ I quickly instructed. There was plenty of cover, but I still didn't think it'd take them long to find us.

≺What's going on?≻ Erek asked.

≺Two of Visser Three's human soldiers just entered the maintenance level, I think they're coming for us,≻ I explained shakily.

≺That's interesting. I don't see why they should be there.≻

It seemed pretty obvious to me at the time. They'd heard us or seen us on sensors or something and were coming for us. But to my surprise, they didn't really seem to be paying much attention to their surroundings. They just passed us.

≺Let's get out of here,≻ I said, more so because I was panicking than because I had a plan.

≺No, I say we go for them,≻ Rachel said. ≺They clearly don't know we're here, there are three of us and two of them, they have to crawl and we can stand, and they have Dracon beams. I'd like to have one of those right about now.≻

We watched them for a few seconds, unsure what to do. They hunched down in front of some equipment some fifty feet away from us.

≺I believe they are trying to access the science computer bank,≻ Ax said.

≺Come on, now or never, I can't do this on my own.≻ Rachel said, and slowly started to make her way towards them. ≺I'll take the one on the right. I'm pretty sure I can snatch his gun right from his belt if he doesn't hear me.≻

≺Prince Jake, I also believe I can do this.≻

≺Okay, fine, go,≻ I said reluctantly.

≺Jake, if they're spotted they can just say they were trying to assess the damage Visser Three did,≻ Marco suggested. I repeated it for him.

I decided to stay hidden, though. I figured that if they'd get caught I might still be able to do something. So I watched Rachel and Ax slowly inch closer to them from a distance.

The Controllers didn't notice. They were too busy messing around with the computer.

≺Ready?≻ Rachel asked.

≺Yes,≻ Ax responded.

≺Three, two, one, go!≻

"What the –" one of the Controllers started to say as Rachel pulled his Dracon beam away and aimed it right at him. Ax had done the same with the other one. They awkwardly crawled around to face them.

"Engineers?" the second Controller hissed. "The Visser will have you two for lunch!"

He seemed to be trying to stay quiet, despite being at gunpoint. I could barely hear him over the whirring.

≺Jake, I get it!≻ Marco suddenly said. ≺They're trying to steal the research material back from Visser One. I have an idea. Can you let me do the talking?≻

≺Uh, I think so… Hang on.≻

I commanded my Yeerk instincts to let him take control temporarily. It made me really uncomfortable, but I could do it nonetheless. I guess Yeerks instinctively don't trust their hosts.

"Not if Visser One rewards us generously for finding you, first." Marco said through our body, and stepped away from our cover.

≺Jake, what are you doing?≻ Rachel asked.

≺Not sure, Marco's doing the talking…≻

"Six and Seven, let's take them to have a little chat with Visser One's guard, shall we?" we continued.

"You'll have to kill us, first," one of the Controllers spat at us.

We shrugged. "No need. If they resist, just stun them."

The two Controllers seemed to give up after that.

I think that's what felt so alien about my Yeerk instincts. Yeerks don't fight or even struggle when they know a situation is helpless. They just accept it, and try to make the best of it.

≺Jake, this is our ticket to get into that room,≻ Marco explained. ≺Maybe even with our guns drawn!≻

Of course! I suppose I could have just read Marco's mind to see what he was thinking, but it hadn't occurred to me at the time.

I repeated his plan to the rest. Rachel and Ax quickly followed our lead. Two minutes later, we were walking through the science deck hallway with the two Controllers at gunpoint.

Visser One's Controllers stared at us. They didn't talk to us or try to stop us, but they were clearly ready to turn all of us into molten Swiss cheese if we made just one false move.

Marco stopped in front of the room we knew Visser One was in, and turned to one of the two insanely huge Hork-Bajir. "We caught these two on the floor below while doing maintenance. They were trying to steal Visser One's research from the science computers."

The Hork-Bajir looked at each other for a moment. They seemed to frown, for as far as Hork-Bajir can do that. Then one of them knocked on the door.

"Visser?"

"What now?" Visser One called back from inside the room.

I could tell that Marco was having a hard time keeping a straight face hearing her voice again, so I quickly took back control. ≺Let me handle this,≻ I said to him.

≺Not giving me much of a choice,≻ he replied.

"Caught Visser Three _gulferch_ ," the Hork-Bajir had responded in the meantime.

Visser One opened the door a second later. She looked at the lot of us, and then frowned at the Hork-Bajir. "You mean _maintenance_ caught them. What do I even keep you idiots around for?" Then she turned to us again. "Please come in."

The five of us went inside, the two Controllers still at gunpoint. Visser One sat down at the table in the middle of the room. I heard the door close behind us again.

The three walls to the sides and in front of me seemed to house three Yeerk prison cells each. Only one of them was closed. The door was see-through, like the one in the Bug fighter, but I couldn't see Jessica from where I was standing.

The door we'd just entered through was in the middle of the wall behind me, guarded by two more massive Hork-Bajir inside the room.

The table Visser One had sat down at seemed to be one big electronic display. It was filled with all kinds of notes and controls, all written in that weird Yeerk language.

"You have my attention," Visser One said to get back mine.

"Ma'am, we caught these two Controllers snooping around on the maintenance level below," I said. "They seemed to be trying to access the science computer banks."

I'll admit, I was having a very hard time keeping my cool. I was sweating like crazy, and really had to make a conscious effort to not run up to Jessica and Cassie's cell. I was hoping Visser One would just pass it off as me being nervous about talking to her directly.

She looked at me in the eyes for a second or two. It was so hard, but I didn't look away.

"Typical," she finally said, and looked away. "Well, plenty of free cells here. I'll interrogate them later."

The Hork-Bajir took over from Rachel and Ax and put the two Controllers in one of the cells.

"You three have served me well," Visser One continued. "I will make sure that you are rewarded accordingly by your superiors. What are your designations?"

I'd almost forgotten what mine was, but Marco reminded me. "Ekfis twenty-one-five-eight," I said. Then Rachel and Ax gave theirs.

Visser One pushed some buttons on her table. Then she looked up, somewhat surprised. "This is a bold move for your first day here."

I almost thought she'd caught on. But she dismissed it.

"I think you have a bright future ahead of yoursel–"

"Andalite! _Filshig_ Andalite!" one of the Hork-Bajir suddenly roared.

No! Busted!

Wait, no, he was pointing at Jessica and Cassie's cell.

Everyone, Visser One included, moved in to get a view of what was happening.

Cassie was demorphing.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

* * *

≺Cassie! No! They can see you!≻ Rachel yelled at her in thought-speak. But the room was still shielded.

Visser One shoved us aside and stood in front of the cell door. "How very interesting."

≺I think she's trying to demorph behind Jessica to not be seen, but there's no way that's gonna work!≻ Marco thought to me in a panic.

≺Prince Jake, what do we do?≻ Ax asked. ≺Do we open fire?≻

I didn't respond for a few seconds.

Visser One could already see that Cassie wasn't an Andalite. When Cassie would finish morphing, I'm sure Visser One would order the Hork-Bajir to grab her. Then she would see her face.

I let my Yeerk instincts search Marco's memories. Had his mom ever met Cassie?

No. At least Marco didn't think so.

≺Jake!≻ Rachel screamed in my head.

≺No,≻ I finally responded. ≺No! Don't shoot, don't give yourselves away. Not yet! But I'm not sure what –≻

"Inass two, cut the surveillance feed, and disable the non-Controller sensors," Visser One interrupted my thoughts. "I would like to keep this turn of events private for now. Inass one, grab Ekfis twenty-one-five-eight."

"What?" I asked, panicked.

"How would you like to have a morph-capable host?" she said. "At least for now."

≺Yes! Yes!≻ Marco yelled in my head. ≺You'll infest Cassie, and they'll be none the wiser!≻

"Y-yes, Visser," I responded.

"Twenty-one-five-six, open the cell," Visser One commanded Ax, and drew her Dracon beam, ready to point it at Cassie and Jessica.

≺Prince Jake?≻

≺Do it, Ax. And don't talk to Cassie, guys. As much as I'd like to, I'm not sure she'd be able to hide her surprise.≻

Ax opened the door.

Jessica gasped. So she really _was_ conscious, somehow…

"How interesting, a human girl," Visser One taunted. "If you attempt to morph, I will stun you, and inject you with a little formula my scientists have been working on. It'd prevent you from morphing ever again until I decide otherwise. Now then, please show yourself. You two look ridiculous."

I have to admit, she wasn't wrong about the last part. Cassie had her face covered underneath the bottom of Jessica's shirt, behind her back. It'd have been funny, if… well, if it wasn't for the blood it was soaked in, the state Jessica was in, the fact that Visser One herself was staring right at Cassie out of morph, and, well… literally _everything_ else.

I think the part about the anti-morphing formula was a bluff, but in any case, Cassie complied.

"You two look surprised to see me," Visser One continued. "Yes, the Council did not like how Visser Three almost killed the human that is somehow immune to Yeerk control, purely out of spite, without first developing an antidote. Fortunately, Visser Three only employs disloyal idiots, one of whom betrayed him by informing me. So, don't worry… Jessica, is it? That antidote is well underway."

Then she turned to Cassie, who practically flinched. I don't think I'd ever seen her that terrified before, at least not up close in human form.

≺Calm down, don't do anything, Jake,≻ Marco said to me. ≺Just don't do anything, and Cassie will be okay.≻

I let Marco take control. It was all I could do to prevent myself from crying. I wanted to hug her so badly…

"I must say _I_ am also surprised to see _you_ , though," Visser One had continued in the meantime. "You must be one of Visser Three's infamous 'Andalite' bandits. I have long suspected that you are not Andalites at all, but the Council and other Vissers refused to believe that a few humans could give Visser Three so much trouble. You have no idea how much I will enjoy seeing him demoted into nothingness when the Council finds out I was right. I suppose I _should_ thank you for that. But morph-capable hosts are much too valuable to me. I'm sure you understand."

She paused. Marco turned our head to look at her. She was grinning.

"Pity, I would have enjoyed hearing you beg for death," she eventually continued. "Inass two, hold the girl down. Struggle or attempt to morph, and he will cut your limbs off. Enough to hurt you temporarily, but not enough to kill you."

Marco made us kneel down next to Cassie, and pushed our head against hers. I could feel her shake and twitch as she silently cried.

≺Good luck, Jake,≻ Marco thought to me.

I commanded my Yeerk instincts to leave. I hardly even noticed the horror of squirming through his flesh because I was so worried about Cassie.

The Hork-Bajir were probably pushing Cassie's right ear directly against Marco's left ear, because I hardly felt fresh air along my Yeerk body when I passed between them.

Infesting Cassie was much worse. I knew I was hurting her, and that she didn't know it was part of our plan to rescue her. She must have been _so_ scared, and there was nothing I could do for another minute or so that wouldn't give us away.

Once again, one by one, senses, motor functions, and finally thoughts returned to my control.

– _dead. We're all dead. I shouldn't have morphed, why did I morph?! That was so stupid! … Come on, pull yourself together. Be strong._ ≺E-Ekfis twenty-one-five-eight, r-right?≻

Now that I had control over her, I didn't know what to say. At least not before Visser One snapped her fingers in front of Cassie's face to get my attention.

"I-I have control, Visser," I said in Cassie's voice.

"Good." Then she looked around, suddenly annoyed. "Ekfis twenty-one-five-six and seven, you may go. Inass one and two, put that host in a cell and wait outside. I will interrogate this human privately."

≺Okay, what do we do now?≻ Rachel said. She'd included Cassie as well.

– _What?! Rachel?! What's she doing aboard the mothership?! –_

≺Cassie, calm down,≻ I said using the Yeerk's link to Cassie. ≺This is Jake.≻

– _W-w-what? This is a trick, this_ has _to be a trick to get me to open up! And they already know my friends' names! Block your memories, Cassie! –_

≺Jake?≻ Rachel asked again.

"So, let's start at the beginning," I think Visser One had said.

≺Rachel, shut up!≻ I yelled at her. ≺I have to focus on Visser One.≻

≺Prince Jake, I'm afraid I must inform you that we, too, are nearing the end of our morphing window,≻ Ax noted. ≺We have used up eighty-two percent of our time.≻

Darn it! I'd been so focused on Cassie's morph time that I'd completely forgotten about our own!

≺We'll find a way to get you guys out,≻ Rachel said. ≺Promise!≻

Visser One snapped her fingers in my face again.

"S-sorry, Visser, my host is resisting me," I said lamely.

She huffed at me, crossed her arms, and made a point of appearing very impatient.

So what do I say? Not the truth, obviously. We might not be able to save Cassie's family from having to hide anymore, and I was very likely to get myself stuck in Yeerk form, but I at least wanted to keep it a secret from the Yeerks that we mostly consist of humans.

"How about a name?" Visser One asked.

≺I-if you're really Jake, Jess called me "Cass" out loud while you were infesting me,≻ Cassie thought to me. ≺I-I'm not sure you heard.≻

What do I do? Do I lie? She'd find out eventually, I'm sure. But then again, I'd probably be toast long before then.

"Cassandra… Smith," I said slowly, figuring it out as I went.

≺Oh my god, it really _is_ you…≻

"How did she get her morphing abilities? What morphs does she have?"

Excuse! Fast! Come on, Jake. Something to do with Rachel? They know she was in contact with the Andalites. No, wait, I couldn't involve her, I'd be making it way too easy to find out who Cassie really is. The mall incident? Maybe? Wait, maybe some homeless kid Jessica happened to know? The Andalites found her, then used her?

"The… The Andalite bandits gave it to her yesterday. She can only morph Yeerk."

" _Andalite_ bandits?"

"Yes, Visser. For as far as this host knows, they are Andalites."

Visser One balled her fists and slammed the table, hard enough for the embedded screen to flicker. She didn't like being "proven" wrong.

"Then why did they break Seerow's Kindness? No Andalite has ever done that before."

That's the name of the law that forbids Andalites from sharing technology with other species. It was named after the Andalite who gave the Yeerks spacefaring technology. Go figure.

I took my time working out how to answer that question. I figured it'd make sense even if I was a normal Yeerk. After all, as a Yeerk myself right then, I knew it took time to extract memories from a host.

"My host does not know. She was a homeless orphan. Jessica sometimes brought her food. Two days ago, Jessica came to her with a bullet wound in her left shoulder, asking if she knew of anyone who could help. She referred her to another homeless person, who used to be a doctor. He patched her up. Then Jessica explained that she was infested. My host doesn't know how the Andalites found them, but they did yesterday. They contacted her and gave her morphing abilities. Then they instructed her to make it easy for Jessica's Yeerk to switch hosts to her, and to then immediately start acquiring the Yeerk. The Andalites then locked her up to starve her Yeerk, but the Yeerk opted to kill itself, instead. Today, they took Jessica and my host to the hospital to attempt to find a way to make other humans immune as well, but we got to them in time."

That last part was particularly hard to say with a straight face, but Visser One seemed to believe me. It for sure wasn't what she _wanted_ to hear, though. She crossed her arms and stared at Jessica through the cell door, trying to work out her next move.

≺So… how on Earth did you get here?≻ Cassie asked. ≺And who was that poor girl you were in?≻

≺That "poor girl" is Marco in morph, so don't worry about her…≻

≺Huh?≻

"You may go," Visser One said before I could explain.

Wait, no! Everyone would see Cassie. Now it was still just Visser One. And we had to get Marco out. Buy more time!

"U-um, Visser, with respect, could I please change back into my maintenance uniform?"

"Fine, make it quick," she groaned.

≺What are you doing?≻

≺Look, I need to buy us time, alright? If we leave the room, everyone will see you.≻

She considered that for a second, then did the host equivalent of grinning at me. I'm sure she was able to tell how awkward I felt about dressing her.

≺Right. I'm _sure_ that's the _only_ reason. Why is Marco a girl, anyway, of all people? Do I want to know?≻

≺It was random!≻

≺Uh-huh.≻

≺Hey, I'm trying to save your life, here!≻

I stared at the cell controls in front of me. There were three buttons, each marked in the same unhelpful Yeerk language. I wish I'd been paying attention when the Hork-Bajir and Ax did it before…

I ended up just pushing buttons at random until the cell opened. Fortunately Visser One was still staring at Jessica's cell and didn't notice.

"Take off the uniform and give it to me if you know what's good for you," I commanded.

"Um… Okay…" he responded, and slowly started to undress. I looked away, despite having been the one to put those clothes on her in the first place.

≺You still have Erek's device, right?≻ I asked after a few seconds. ≺Does that get past the thought-speak shielding?≻

He nodded. Then he gestured for me to come closer, so he could whisper to me without Visser One overhearing him from across the room.

"Ax is in one of the other labs of the mothership, trying to make more of that immunity stuff. Rachel should be nearby, figuring out a way to get it into this room. The plan is… Well, the plan is to free my mom. Yeah, today's definitely the weirdest day of my life."


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

* * *

Free Marco's mom. In other words, kill or imprison her Yeerk, Visser One. The highest ranking general of an invading alien army.

And there I was, waiting for a girl to take her clothes off for me. While looking through the eyes and sensing the thoughts of the girl I _like._

So I had to agree with Marco. Weirdest day of my life. You don't make this stuff up. Really made me wonder how in the world I got to that point, but I didn't have time to think about that.

≺Marco just whispered the plan to me, what's everyone's status?≻ I asked.

≺I opened up an air duct thingy,≻ Rachel said. ≺I think I can shove the immunity stuff in through a grate once Ax gets back. It should be to the right of the door.≻

≺I see it. Ax?≻

≺The lab I went to was empty. The replicator is almost ready.≻

≺Okay, just hurry, I don't know how long we can keep Visser One busy here, how long do you need?≻

≺I should be back in about seven of your minutes.≻

≺There's no way I can distract her that long! She already told me to leave!≻

≺Rachel, you may be able to cut power to the door from where you are,≻ Erek said. ≺I will guide you.≻

≺Can't I just shoot something?≻ she complained. ≺I'm ready to shoot something…≻

Marco had long finished taking the uniform off at that point. I was just staring at it throughout the conversation.

"What is keeping you so long?" Visser One snapped at me from the other side of the room.

"I'm, uh, still getting the hang of my new host's motor skills," I said, while scrambling to pick up the uniform. "I'm having more trouble than usual, I'm sorry… Maybe there are some lasting effects from Jessica's immunity in this host…?"

"You can finish outside, get out of here," Visser One raged.

I intentionally fumbled trying to pull my pants up. "Uh…"

She walked towards me, roughly pulled me out of Marco's cell, locked it, and then pulled me to the door.

≺Got it!≻ Rachel called, just in time. ≺I hope. Let me know if I need to shoot it instead.≻

Visser One pushed the button next to the door that I'm sure would have opened it under normal conditions. She frowned, pressed it again a couple times, and finally whacked it with a fist. "The door seems to be malfunctioning," she said in a dangerously calm way. "Fix it."

≺Yes, that did it! Please don't shoot anything yet,≻ I said.

I was so relieved that I forgot to respond to Visser One.

"Ekfis twenty-one-five-eight! Fix the door and get out of my sight! Did I misplace my trust in you?"

Oh, you don't even know, I thought.

"I… With respect, ma'am, there is no way to fix it from here, it looks like the door was disabled by Command. I don't know why, but we're locked in."

There, that should keep her busy.

She stormed back to the table and started pressing buttons. Within seconds, a voice responded over the intercom. She demanded to speak to the captain, but apparently he wasn't available, so she was placed on hold. You can bet that whoever she had on the line scrambled to look for him for dear life.

≺Ax, how long?≻ I asked.

≺I am running back. Four of your minutes. This would have been much faster if I had not been in a human morph.≻

Visser One pushed some buttons again. Another voice over the intercom. But this one I recognized.

"Engineering," it sighed.

"I am locked in room B-G-thirty-three-five with Ekfis twenty-one-five-eight. She tells me the door has been locked by Command, but I think things are just malfunctioning, as usual on this pile of garbage!"

Ekfis four was silent for a second or two. "Request permission to speak to Ekfis twenty-one-five-eight?" he eventually managed to say.

"She's all yours!"

"Twenty-one-five-eight, what the hell did I just tell you?!"

I'm not sure he realized he was on speaker. I don't think he would've been so informal otherwise.

"U-um… Don't break anything and stay out of the way of Command and the Vissers' troops?"

I knew I was throwing gasoline on a fire. But I just couldn't help myself.

Ekfis four stayed silent for a few seconds again. I was a little worried he'd realized that my voice was different, but in the end he either didn't notice or didn't care.

"What _exactly_ did you do?"

Visser One responded for me. "Well, Ekfis twenty-one-five-six through eight brought two of Visser Three's soldiers to me, at gunpoint, for snooping around on the level below me. I can't imagine what _they_ had been doing there, if they had been commanded not to interfere." She looked at me coldly. "I do not appreciate insubordination."

"Visser One, ma'am, you have my _sincerest_ apologies for the behavior of my subordinates. It will not happen again, I assure you."

"Just send someone _capable_ to come _fix_ it, you moron!" She whacked the table, which I'm pretty sure broke the connection. It might have broken the table, too, because the screen turned off.

≺I am here,≻ I heard Ax in my head. ≺Rachel, give these to Prince Jake.≻

I hunched down by the grate. "I-I think I found the problem!" I said. At that point I was just hoping Visser One wouldn't kill Cassie and me, although realistically, a morph-capable host would have been way too valuable for her to waste like that.

Rachel shoved three sort-of patch things through the grate. I quickly put two of them in one of my pockets, and looked at the final one, trying to make sense of it.

≺How do they work?≻

≺Push the light side of the injection patch against bare skin,≻ Ax informed.

"What are you even doing?" Visser One yelled at me from right behind me. "The access panel is over there!" She roughly pulled me up to my feet.

I whacked the patch right into the side of her neck. "This!"

She let me go. Although not because she realized what had happened, or because it was already working. She pulled the patch off of her neck, and then stared at me in utter shock and disbelief.

"What is the meaning of this? Visser Three sent you, didn't he?" She drew her Dracon beam and pointed it at my face, point-blank range. "What did you inject my host with?"

I put my hands up. ≺How long is it supposed to take before this stuff starts working?!≻

No one answered. For what had seemed like an eternity, the two of us just stood there. In reality, it couldn't have been more than a few seconds.

Then her hand started twitching. She looked at it, and slowly started to catch on. "You are making my host immune!" she cried out.

I'm sure she would have shot me at that point if she still had enough control. But she didn't. She dropped the Dracon beam two seconds later. I quickly grabbed it and pointed it at her.

≺You can't shoot her! That's Marco's mom!≻ Cassie cried to me.

≺I know, I'm not going to, but Visser One doesn't know that!≻

"You will die a slow, torturous death, t-traitor! A-as will V-Visser… Visser Three…"

She collapsed onto the floor. She was twitching at first, but then she stopped moving.

I stared at her for a few seconds. I wasn't sure if she was still breathing.

≺D-did… Did that kill her…?≻ Cassie thought to me.

≺I don't –≻

≺Prince Jake, we have used ninety-eight percent of our time!≻

Right!

≺Everyone demorph!≻ I yelled while pushing myself out of Cassie's head.

Thankfully, I was pretty sure Visser One never had surveillance turned back on.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

* * *

When I finished demorphing, I first let Marco out of his cell. It was hard to not just run immediately into Cassie's arms, but I couldn't just leave him in there. I just mashed the buttons again until it opened.

His face went from worried to relieved to downright terrified within the first two seconds of seeing my face. "J-Jake? Wh-what…?"

As soon as he saw his mom lying on the floor he pushed me aside and ran over to her. He crouched down and tried to shake her awake, but it didn't do anything. "Mom! Wake up! It's me, Marco!"

I looked at Cassie. She was looking at the two of them with tears in her eyes. I walked over to her and put my arm around her, to which she turned to hug me tightly.

I don't think she knew what to say. But that's okay, because I didn't, either. There were so many conflicting emotions…

The fear of maybe having killed my best friend's mom. The relief of holding Cassie in my arms. The helplessness of being locked in a room in the middle of the mothership. The thrill of having just defeated Visser One. The horror of Jessica sitting without her skull one cell door away.

For a while, we just silently cried in each other's arms.

Cassie was the first to let go. She walked over to Marco and put her hand on his shoulder. He was still sitting next to his mom, also crying softly.

"M-Marco, I'm so sorry…"

He didn't seem to respond at all. Marco isn't the best at handling emotions, and this wasn't exactly an easy situation to begin with. I figured he might have even been angry at Cassie and me for basically testing the immunity injection on his mom.

Cassie gave up after a few seconds, and turned to Jessica's cell instead. She flinched when she got close enough to see her.

"J-Jake, h-how did you open that cell…?"

"I don't know, I just pushed buttons randomly until it opened."

≺Press the middle button twice, followed by the bottom one,≻ Ax said from the maintenance floor beneath us. So the others were still close enough to hear us, but probably just didn't know what to say, either.

As it turns out, those Yeerk cells are as sound-proof as they are thought-speak-proof, because Jessica had been shouting. A lot. Her voice was hoarse already.

"– won't let you take me! I'll kill myself! I'll – C-Cassie! I-I'm so, _so_ sorry! I should never have told you to morph! I –"

Cassie knelt down before her and shushed her. "My friends came to save us, look… The Yeerk who'd infested me was Jake in morph, and Visser One i-is…"

Her voice broke before she could finish. I walked over to her and stroked her back, trying not to look at Jessica too much in the process. I was sure I'd have thrown up otherwise.

"H-how…?" Jessica asked.

"I-I have _no_ idea…" Cassie admitted, and looked at me.

"What happened to Mom? D-did they take her here?"

"Erek took care of her and Hank, they should be in the forest hideout," I answered.

Jessica sighed shakily, then took a few deep breaths to try to calm herself down.

"I-I don't look so good, do I…?" she eventually said.

"N-no," Cassie said. "B-but we'll make you morph. I promise. You'll be okay. R-right, Jake?"

"Right…" I said, though I wasn't too convinced.

We'd recently found the Andalite device that lets you pass on morphing abilities. And we know that any morph will heal all your wounds, because your whole body is reconstructed from your DNA. So if we would've had the device with us, sure, she'd be in perfect health in no-time.

But we _didn't_ have the device with us. It was safely hidden back on Earth. So we'd have to get her back there in one piece. That was already a tall order for the rest of us, but Jessica… I didn't think she'd even survive being moved. I mean, you still have to be alive and conscious to acquire something and start the morphing process.

"M-Marco…?" I suddenly heard behind me.

"Mom!"

"She's alive!" Cassie gasped, and got up to walk over to them.

I guess none of us had tried to see if she was still breathing. I know I didn't. I was too afraid of what the answer might have been.

But as I watched the three of them, a thought suddenly washed over me.

I jumped over to the Dracon beam that Visser One had dropped before, grabbed it, and pointed it right at Eva's head, from only a few feet away.

"We can't know for sure if the immunity stuff actually worked! Visser One could be faking the whole thing!"

Marco got up and took a step back. He looked between me and his mom, seemingly unsure whose side to pick.

Cassie also stepped back. She looked terrified. "J-Jake, calm down…"

Eva had immediately put her hands up. "I-I think V-Visser One disintegrated herself before leaving me… Th-that might be why I passed out…" Then she turned to Marco. "B-but… M-Marco, what are you doing here?"

He didn't know what to say to that. Can't really blame him – the situation we were in was pretty hard to explain. I also figured he might not have wanted to tell her the truth yet, in case she was still under Visser One's control.

Cassie didn't care, though, and managed to put it into words. "We're the Andalite bandits, but Visser One was right, only one of us is _actually_ an Andalite. We call ourselves the Animorphs. Marco's one of us."

I kept my gaze and Dracon beam firmly locked onto Eva, looking for anything that could have given away that she was still a Controller. But there wasn't even a hint of disgust when Cassie revealed who we are. She just looked at Marco worriedly, outright ignoring that I had a gun pointed at her aside from keeping her hands up. If she was still Visser One, she was hiding it _really_ well.

Still, as much as I wanted to believe that Visser One was dead and we'd saved Eva, my gut was telling me that this was all way too easy. We'd gone into this whole thing in a desperate attempt to save Cassie's life, and now we'd suddenly defeated Visser One? How did that happen?

I looked at Cassie briefly. She's much better at figuring out what's going on in someone else's head than I am.

She was looking between the three of us worriedly, clearly still trying to figure out a way to calm the situation. When she saw me look at her, she briefly looked at my Dracon beam and shook her head slightly.

≺Hey, uh, guys, we've fully remorphed…≻ Rachel broke the silence. ≺What's going on up there…?≻

"Jake thinks Marco's mom might still be Visser One," Cassie said hesitantly. "He's pointing a Dracon beam at her."

≺Well, is it set to stun or kill?≻

"I have no idea," I admitted.

"Jake, don't do it, man…" Marco said. "Visser One or not, that's my mom…"

≺Prince Jake, Tobias and I suggest that Cassie morphs Yeerk and tries to infest Marco's mom,≻ Ax said. ≺It is physically impossible for two Yeerks to infest a human simultaneously. Also, she will need to be infested before you leave the room, or the non-Controller sensors would detect her.≻

"W-what about me?" Jessica asked. She was still restrained in her cell, but could of course hear us now that the door was open.

"The sensors are programmed to ignore anyone who's in restraints," Eva said. "Y-you should be okay as long as we leave your handcuffs on…"

"Good enough for me," I said. "Cassie?"

She sighed, but nodded, took off her uniform, and started to morph. Unfortunately, she was close enough to Eva that I couldn't look away without also looking away from Eva. Watching Cassie turn into a Yeerk might have just been even _more_ horrifying than morphing into one myself.

When she finished, Eva voluntarily let her crawl onto her hand and raised her up to her ear. Cassie's Yeerk instincts didn't allow her to hesitate.

≺O-okay, I'm inside her and can sense her, Visser One is gone,≻ she said eventually. ≺The immunity drug _definitely_ worked, too. I have even _less_ control over her than I had over Jessica. I can hardly even talk to her using the Yeerk link… But she showed me her memory of what happened just before she blacked out. Visser One said she was going to kill herself.≻

Apparently it _was_ that simple, then. I lowered my Dracon beam.

Marco threw himself into his mom's arms as soon as I did. "D-dad and I missed you so much…" he said after a few seconds.

"I missed you too, honey… W-when I saw you in the underwater base for project six-four-two, I thought… I-I thought you were…"

"A-and I thought you'd died there…"

"H-how long have you known that I was a Controller…?"

"I've known since… since we were first taken here. I was the gorilla. I almost broke down when I saw you…"

"I-I remember… That's when Visser One first suspected you weren't Andalites. She had no idea it was you, but it made no sense to her that only one of you would be in Andalite form. Not to mention that he looked too young to be in their military. But how –"

≺Guys, stop talking!≻ Rachel interrupted. ≺Two engineers just entered the maintenance level. They might hear you!≻

≺Prince Jake, it will be easy for them to repair the door,≻ Ax added. ≺We will distract them, but you and Marco should morph as soon as possible.≻

I looked at Marco. I saw him let go of Eva and start to morph just before my eyes filled with Yeerk snot.

They say that the third time's the charm, but I'll tell you: not when it comes to morphing or demorphing a Yeerk. The sensation of drowning in that guck will surely be haunting my nightmares for months to come. Especially now that I knew what it looked like from when Cassie did it.

Marco had long finished his morph when I finally finished mine. He was already hunched down by me in the maintenance uniform when my not-quite-echolocation started working.

≺I'm ready,≻ I said.

He lifted me up to let me infest him again. As always, his senses came first, then his motor functions, then his thoughts.

– _actually worked. –_

≺What worked?≻

≺We saved my mom, Jake! We actually did it!≻

≺Right, but we're not out of here yet, you know…≻

≺Yeah, yeah. I know. It's just overwhelming. An hour ago I didn't even know she was still alive. I'd given up. But now…≻

≺Let's focus on getting out of here, first. There'll be plenty of time to celebrate, later.≻ Then I switched from the Yeerk link to regular thought-speak. ≺Guys, what's going on down there?≻ I asked Rachel and Ax.

≺I tried to tell them that Ax was already working on fixing it, but they didn't really want to listen,≻ Rachel said.

≺I predict that the door will open in about one of your minutes,≻ Ax added.

≺Jake, Eva's pretty confident that she can get us out of here in her Blade ship,≻ Cassie said. ≺She just has to order her crew to drop us off somewhere on Earth. Just follow our lead.≻

I looked at Eva. She'd already released Jessica from all restraints except her handcuffs, and was holding her in front of her.

Jessica could only barely stand. She was silently crying, with her eyes squeezed shut in pain. But she'd survived being moved, at least.

≺Prince Jake, I believe we shouldn't leave yet,≻ Ax said. ≺We need to destroy the Yeerk research into Jessica's immunity, or they can just make another human immune to continue.≻

≺I don't think we should leave yet, anyway,≻ Rachel added. ≺I mean, we're on their ship and we have Visser One on our side. I'm sure we could do some serious damage. We're never going to get a chance like this ever again.≻

≺Rachel, you can't just ignore the state Jessica's in!≻ Cassie said. ≺You saw her earlier, right? She definitely won't survive a fight like this. We need to get her back to Earth as soon as possible!≻

The door opened before anyone could respond.

Ekfis four was already waiting outside. He bowed to Eva.

"Visser One, ma'am, I once again deeply apologize for the behavior of my subordinates," he said quickly, then stood back upright and shot me a look.

Eva mostly ignored him and started walking to the door. "Inass one and two, follow me to my ship. I want to leave this pile of junk as soon as possible."

Ekfis four silently stepped out of the way for Visser One. But he blocked me when I tried to follow her.

"Nuh-uh, you're coming with me."

Eva turned to look at me for a moment, but she seemed unsure what to do. That was _way_ out of character for Visser One, obviously. But she pulled herself together.

"Ekfis twenty-one-five-eight did a great service for me in capturing Visser Three's spies," she said. "She is coming with _me._ "

"V-Visser?" Ekfis four said confusedly. He stepped out of the way to let me follow Eva, but he followed us, too. He seemed even more terrified now than when he was apologizing to Visser One.

"V-Visser, with respect, twenty-one-five-eight must be disciplined for disobedience," he added. "O-otherwise Visser Three would surely…" He seemed too scared to finish.

≺He thinks Visser Three's going to kill him for what you did!≻ Cassie exclaimed.

≺But we can't help him, Cassie!≻ I quickly said. ≺I'm sorry, but we have to put our lives over his.≻

"Your relation with Visser Three is not my concern," Eva said a second or two later.

"Y-yes, Visser," Ekfis four said.

I turned to look at him. He stopped walking and kind of stared at a wall defeatedly. "I-I'm sorry," I stammered.

≺What are you doing?≻ Marco asked.

I ignored him to see Ekfis four's response. He'd turned to me and frowned. He certainly wasn't expecting me to apologize, but in the end, he gave me a slight nod.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

* * *

≺So, now what?≻ Rachel said.

She and Ax had already been waiting for us by the dropshaft, and followed us from there. I figured it'd be another long walk.

≺Let's please just go to Visser One's Blade ship first, then Jessica should be safe,≻ Cassie said.

≺I agree,≻ Rachel said. ≺And then we go back to mess up the mothership. How hard can it be? If we'd even just disable their cloaking stuff for a little while, anyone on Earth with a telescope would be able to see a ship this big, right?≻

≺Erek, how hard _would_ that be?≻ I asked through his thought-speak devices.

≺Not nearly as simple as Rachel expects it to be. The mothership is ultimately commanded by its captain. In special situations a Visser can assume command, but that is quite uncommon out of combat, and Visser Three and his army would certainly get in your way. Destroying the cloaking devices is also not an easy task on a ship that big. They have hundreds of generators scattered around the hull, and you'd have to take out a lot of them to actually influence the cloak.≻

≺What about their immunity research? I agree with Ax that we should get rid of that if we can.≻

≺Also difficult, but not impossible. You would need to cut main power to the ship's systems to wipe all localized volatile memory, but all important data is also backed up to two separate computer mainframes to protect it against such outages. Those mainframes have their own small reactors, and don't need power to retain the data, anyway. You would need to destroy their memory banks, or reset them while main power is out.≻

≺Erek, we're not _actually_ engineers,≻ Rachel said. ≺In English?≻

≺Cause a power outage in one place and destroy computers in two other places.≻

≺I like the destroying part.≻

≺Tobias notes that we should try to make more injection patches before we destroy the research,≻ Ax said.

≺Eva told me there's a thing on the Blade ship that should be able to do that, even though Visser One never used it herself,≻ Cassie said. ≺We should be able to just copy the two remaining injection patch things, so we can worry about that on our way back to Earth.≻

≺Here's a thought,≻ Rachel said. ≺Why don't we just steal the whole Blade ship? We'd be able to make as much of that immunity stuff as we want, not to mention that, you know, we'd have a freaking Blade ship! Erek, would you be able to hide it from the Yeerks if we get it down to Earth?≻

≺It'd take me some time to make a hologram that big, but I should be able to do it. Especially if main power is still out on the mothership when you get here. The sensors they'd need to track you to your landing site rely on that, so I would have significantly more time.≻

≺This is madness, Jake!≻ Marco thought to me. ≺Don't forget who we're up against. Just because we had a lucky break just now doesn't mean we'll be able to pull all that stuff off!≻

Cassie spoke up before I could respond to Marco. ≺I'm not sure that's a good idea. Eva says that a Blade ship is normally crewed by almost a hundred Controllers. Freeing or killing all of them would be next to impossible, so Eva would have to send them all away, which is going to look really suspicious…≻

≺But does she think she'll be able to do it?≻ Rachel asked.

≺She thinks so, but she's really worried about it anyway,≻ Cassie said after a pause.

≺You should understand that the effects of the power outage would be seen all over the mothership,≻ Erek pointed out. ≺All Controllers would be on high alert, so you'll have to act quickly and carefully. Especially if Visser One is already making herself look suspicious.≻

The group fell silent, so I spent the next few minutes of walking to the Blade ship trying to think it through.

The way I saw it, we had four options.

The safest one was to have Eva command her crew to drop us off in the forest somewhere as soon as we'd get there, without trying to take care of the immunity research. But then we'd only have a few injection patches to work with, with no good way of making more. Also, who knows how quickly the Yeerks would develop an antidote.

The next safest one was probably to steal the Blade ship as quickly as possible. We'd be able to make as many patches as we'd want, but the Yeerks would still have the means to develop an antidote, so we might still lose that advantage later. Then again, we'd still have our own Blade ship. Who knows what we could pull off with one of those, especially when upgraded with Chee technology.

Then there's the two options where we'd destroy the research first. Especially if we'd also be able to steal the Blade ship, we'd leave the Yeerks in a really bad position. We'd be able to start freeing important people to get them back on our side, and we'd be able to seriously fight back with all the Dracon firepower, too.

But it would be really dangerous. I especially didn't like the idea of having to split up four ways; Eva, Cassie and Jessica on the Blade ship, and the rest of us to our three targets on the mothership. We only had three of Erek's thought-speak extension gizmos, so some of us would be out of the loop. Probably Eva, Cassie, and Jessica, because the rest of us would need Erek to tell us what to do exactly.

≺You're not seriously considering this, are you?≻ Marco said at some point.

≺Why are you so against this? Sure, it'll be dangerous, but we're never going to get anywhere without taking risks.≻

≺I just got my mom back, Jake. I don't want to take risks right now. Steal the Blade ship for all I care, but I want to stay with her.≻

≺Look, Marco, I don't mean to be so cold, but this mission is a lot more important than your mom right now.≻

≺I see,≻ he said snidely. ≺Your brother is important enough for us to risk all our lives for, but you'd inject my mom with an untested drug and then point a Dracon beam at her without even knowing if it's set to stun properly. Got it.≻

I guess he had me there. Our first mission had been to free my brother, and it did not go well.

I sighed. ≺You're right. Going after my brother that time was stupid. But that was months ago. We all know what we're up against now. We need every advantage we can get…≻

≺Let me know how you feel about it when the time comes to put a gun to Tom's head.≻

I didn't know how to respond to that for a while. But then a thought occurred to me.

≺What if you and Cassie swap? Cassie can morph Yeerk, and I have my combo-morph. So you can stay behind on the ship with Eva.≻

≺That's… better, I guess. But I still think going back to the mothership is too risky.≻

I sighed again.

≺I think we should vote on this,≻ I said to the whole group. ≺Steal the Blade ship or not, and destroy the research or not. Marco thinks destroying the research is too risky. What does everyone else think?≻

≺Well, you already know what I want,≻ Rachel said. ≺Jordan isn't sure. She pretty much just wants to get out of here.≻

≺Tobias believes we should stay to destroy the research, and decide what to do with the Blade ship later,≻ Ax said. ≺I will follow Prince Jake's lead, but agree with Rachel and Tobias that we should destroy the research.≻

≺I don't know what to think,≻ Cassie said. ≺I… I really just want to go home, but I don't think we should pass this up… So… I don't know. Eva feels pretty much the same way. She's really worried about Marco, but at the same time is worried about Visser Three continuing the research. As for Jess, um… Tug once for staying to delete – O-okay, I guess she votes to stay. Jake, what do you think?≻

≺I guess we should delete the research before leaving, but I'm worried about only having three thought-speak links when we need to split up four ways.≻

≺Eva, Jess, and I will be fine without one, Jake. No one's going to be stupid enough to challenge Visser One in her own ship.≻

≺I guess…≻

≺I counted five in favor of deleting the research, one against, and three unsure,≻ Erek said.

≺So we go for it,≻ I said. ≺But… Cassie, maybe we can go together? Marco's really worried about his mom, he wants to stay with her.≻

≺Unfortunately, you will need Marco's combo-morph,≻ Erek said before she could respond. ≺You'll need your access token, and it only works when used by the host and Yeerk it was assigned to.≻

≺Then… I'm sorry, Marco,≻ I said using the Yeerk link. ≺Look, we'll be fine. We have to be.≻

He didn't respond. Even his private train of thought seemed mostly silent. I figured he was thinking about his mom. I didn't want to use my Yeerk abilities to infringe on that, so I just left him be.

It took another few minutes of walking to get to the Blade ship. Unlike the Bug fighter that brought us to the mothership, the Blade ship was docked to the outside, so for the first time, we ended up walking along the outer hull.

It was kind of a weird experience, because this was the first time we could actually see outside. Without windows, it was pretty easy to forget that we were floating around in space with absolutely no way out. It felt more like we were in a big underground base, or a bunker, or something along those lines. But now there was no way around it.

The angle was wrong for me to see Earth, but the stars were brilliant, brighter than anything you could ever hope to see from Earth. It was both awe-inspiring and terrifying at the same time.

And then there was the Blade ship. It was a bit hard to see, because it didn't seem to have any exterior lights or windows. It was pretty much just a huge black spot, like the stars were missing in that area.

I _knew_ what it looked like, though. Blade ships look kind of like an airplane, but their wings bend forward from the back. If you'd look at one from the top, it'd almost look like a battle axe. They're bigger than the biggest airplane I've ever seen, though, and the base section is comparatively thicker, too. I figured they had at least four levels, maybe five, with the middle one easily fifty feet wide. Their wings are also thick enough for at least two levels.

They're strong, too. Besides their cloak, they have sci-fi force-field shields, and a bunch of very strong Dracon beams built in. So that Blade ship would be one heck of a new base of operations for us, if we'd manage to steal it.

To enter, we had to go through two sets of airlocks. I figured that the first was part of the mothership, and the second was embedded in the rear of the Blade ship. But I didn't see anything in the connecting hallway that hinted to where they would disconnect exactly.

We passed at least a dozen heavily armed Hork-Bajir on the way. Two of them wore silver security uniforms, the rest wore Visser One's black and gold. All of them stood attention to Eva and Inass one and two as we passed them. They silently ignored the rest of us.

The Blade ship's airlock opened up into a small cargo bay, with another door in the back. Or rather, the front, since we'd entered through the back. It was raised about half a level with respect to the cargo bay floor, accessible from a catwalk-like section with two stairs facing either side of the ship. That door led to a hallway, with a short dropshaft immediately to our right. Eva took us one level up to another hallway just like it. Eventually she turned into a room about halfway along the ship.

The room looked a bit like an operating room in a hospital, for as far as I knew what those look like from TV. There were two human Controllers in there, who shot up somewhat panicky when Eva entered the room. They clearly weren't expecting her.

"Keep this human alive," Eva said simply, and handed Jessica over to them. "And do not hurt her. There is no point in interrogating a human who is too hurt to think."

"Yes, Visser," one of the Controllers said.

"Inass one and two, stay here. It is of paramount importance that the girl stays alive, and that Visser Three and his minions cannot get to her. If her situation changes or she calls for me, notify me immediately. I will be in my office."

" _Ka,_ Visser," both Hork-Bajir said simultaneously, and got in position by the door.

Eva left the room again, and gestured for us to follow.

≺Will she be alright on her own?≻ I asked.

≺Eva said those two medics were the ones who saved her life after she'd practically drowned in that underwater base,≻ Cassie said. ≺She should be in good hands.≻

Eva took us to a second dropshaft further to the front of the ship. She went up to the top floor, one level further up. There, she unlocked a very strong-looking door to a large, luxurious room. It spanned the entire width of the ship, and continued all the way to the front. The front, sides, and ceiling were made up almost entirely of windows, so the view was fantastic. The back wall and floor were mostly black, with gold-colored details. The centerpiece was a large table, with a single, very fancy chair behind it.

≺Nice place,≻ Rachel said. ≺Add a few chairs, and it'll be just perfect for meetings.≻

≺I don't know…≻ Cassie said. ≺Doesn't it just scream "evil" to you?≻

Rachel shrugged. ≺With so many windows, I'm sure it'll look a lot friendlier when it's parked in the forest.≻

After we walked in, Eva pushed a bunch of buttons on a display embedded into the back wall. The door closed, and the windows seemed to flicker for a moment. Then Eva finally seemed to relax.

A moment later, Cassie emerged from her ear, and immediately started demorphing.

≺Is that a good idea?≻ Rachel asked.

"It's fine," Eva said. "There's no surveillance here, the Blade ship doesn't have non-Controller sensors like the mothership does, and I just locked the door and blinded the windows, just in case. Can you hand me your tokens? I can grant them full access to this ship from here."

I reached into my uniform's pocket to grab my token and hand it to her. I also took out the remaining two injection patches and left them on the table.

≺Can't I at least remorph before we do this?≻ Marco asked.

≺Why? We're only like fifteen minutes in.≻

≺I don't know, I just… I just want to say goodbye to Mom.≻

≺I can also just give you control for a minute, you know. That's a lot faster.≻

≺But that's just not the same!≻

Now, under normal circumstances, I'd have just let him do it. But being a Yeerk, I could tell that he didn't actually seem all that worried about his mom. He just didn't want to go with us, and was looking for an excuse.

Until Marco found out that his mom was Visser One, he was always a bit like that about going on missions. Every time we only barely managed to convince him to come along, and every time he'd say it was going to be his last time.

I'd always figured he didn't want to come along because he was worried about what his dad might do if he wouldn't come home one day. When Eva supposedly died, he got so depressed that Marco practically had to take care of him for about a year, so it always made sense to me that he'd want to protect him.

But now… Now I was starting to wonder if he'd just been using that as an excuse for being selfish.

I mean, it's not like _any_ of us _want_ to be an Animorph, or wanted to go on this mission, for that matter. Just like him, I _wanted_ to go back to Earth and cower away. I'm sure the others did, too. But that wouldn't be the _smart_ thing to do, so we silently accept it and try to deal with it. Why couldn't Marco?

≺So, Erek, what do we need to do, exactly?≻ Rachel unknowingly interrupted.

≺I'll walk each of you through the steps independently. Where are you right now?≻

"We're docked to port D2," Eva said. Rachel relayed it for her.

≺Okay. You best get going, then. One of the memory banks is on almost the opposite side of the ship.≻

≺So, do you want to say goodbye or not?≻ I asked Marco, and gave him control over our body.

He sighed, then walked us over to Eva and hugged her.

"Be safe, okay, honey?"

"I'll try, I guess…"

"Jake, you too…" Cassie said. She'd just finished demorphing.

≺We'll be fine,≻ I said, trying to hide how conflicted I felt about Marco. ≺We already got _this_ far, didn't we? They won't even know what hit them.≻

She looked at me worriedly. I think she immediately realized something was wrong. I don't know how she does it.

Marco let go of his mom, so I took back control. ≺Anyway, we're ready.≻

≺Okay, then let's do this,≻ Rachel said.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

* * *

The next fifteen-or-so minutes were kind of boring. No, boring isn't really the right word. Boring in that ominous, calm-before-the-storm kind of way.

Marco and I didn't say anything to each other directly, and I made a point of ignoring his private train of thought and emotions.

I just didn't want to know. This stupid Yeerk morph was going to mess up our almost lifelong friendship at this rate. I just hoped we'd never have to take each other as hosts ever again once this was over, and that I'd forget about what I'd sensed.

Erek had sent me to the furthest mainframe memory bank thing. He said it was right above the bridge. The increasing number of light-blue Command uniforms I saw along the way seemed to confirm that I hadn't missed a turn somewhere. That would've been bad; after all, Erek could only work out where I was from my descriptions. And everything looked exactly the same to me.

Eventually he sent me into one of the maintenance floors. It was a lot like the one we'd been in before – completely deserted, and caked with a thick layer of oily dust. But this one's ceiling was a lot higher, even more than a normal level, and there was a lot more equipment, wiring, and piping around. There was even some sci-fi beeping going on here, although it was still quiet enough to overhear conversations on the floor below me.

I didn't really pay any attention to them until I recognized Ekfis four's voice again. I focused my hearing.

"– going to kill me. But this isn't my host's fault, so –"

"What you have failed to communicate is how this is _my_ problem. The fact that you let three new recruits roam around the ship unsupervised _at all_ is already a breach of protocol, and your tone seems to suggest that it was hardly your first. How you made it to the rank of engineering supervisor is beyond me."

"So demote me. Suspend me. I don't care, but spare –"

"Ekfis four! You are not worthy of a new host. Not even a Gedd. Nor are you worthy of my time, so get out of my office, or I will kill you myself!"

"Yes, 'sir,'" he eventually said, as disrespectfully as he could.

Was he actually trying to save his host's life?

≺Jake, forget about him,≻ Marco said harshly. ≺Or do you care more about that Controller than me?≻

I moved on without responding, trying not to think about Marco too much. I hated every part of this. Wasn't hearing someone beg for his life for what we did bad enough for one day?

Heck, for one _hour,_ considering all the other things we'd gone through that day. It felt like we'd left from Erek's house together at least a week ago.

≺Jake, the others are already in position,≻ Erek urged.

≺Yeah, yeah. Give me a second, I'm still looking.≻

I looked around for the machinery that Erek had described to me on my way there. A big, doughnut-shaped metal device about ten feet across, wired to a couple of rows of electrical equipment racks. Despite it being so big, I had to walk around for a few minutes to find it. I couldn't see very far ahead of me because of all the equipment and wiring that was in the way.

≺I found it, I think. Now what?≻

≺There should be a control panel with a display on the doughnut-shaped device, opposite to the computer banks. Do you see it?≻

≺Yeah.≻

≺There should be a maintenance panel underneath it. You should be able to open it with your token and voiceprint to uncover the control systems for the reactor.≻

≺Uhh… Hang on…≻

It took me another minute or so to even find my way there. I noticed that a lot of the stuff that was in the way was actually not _supposed_ to be in the way; it'd just come loose from the ceiling supports. I also noticed that there was rust here and there, and that some lights had gone. The ship didn't seem that old from inside the hallways, but I guess it must've been. Or it was at least poorly maintained.

The reactor's maintenance panel was clearly marked, so it wasn't hard to find when I made my way there. "Ekfis twenty-one-five-eight," I said, while swiping my access token. The panel clicked open obediently.

The guts of the reactor looked like someone had crammed the insides of a couple dozen computers around a car engine.

≺Uh, I hope you're not expecting me to make sense of this mess.≻

≺There should be a row of five circuit boards by the top-left of the opening, suspended vertically, each about a square foot in size. On my signal, I need you to gently pull the second-to-left board downwards, so it ends up crooked in its socket. When it's angled far enough, the reactor should start to rev up. When that happens, get out of there as fast as you can. Don't pull the card out _all_ the way, though, or the reactor would just shut down, which wouldn't destroy the data. Got it?≻

≺What do you mean by the "get out of there as fast as you can" part…?≻

≺Well, it'll cause an overload. That could result in anything from lots of smoke to fire, or possibly even an explosion. But you'll want to get out of there quickly, anyway. It _should_ take the Yeerks some time before they realize that the smoke isn't just a by-product of the power outage, but they'll surely come looking for its source eventually.≻

≺Great,≻ I said sarcastically. ≺Well, I'm as ready as I'll ever be, I guess.≻

≺Okay. Everyone, get ready. Three. Two. One. Go!≻

I pulled the circuit board down until the gentle hum of the reactor turned into the sound of a centrifuge that was just starting to spin up. Then I turned around and tried to make my way back through the wiring mess as fast as I could.

The power outage started a few seconds later. Most of the lights turned off and most of the humming around me died down. There was still some emergency lighting, but it didn't make traversing the maintenance section any easier.

Above and below me, people were shouting all kinds of orders back and forth. There was a lot of cursing about the state of the ship, too. Judging by the maintenance sections, this probably wasn't the first time something like this had happened.

As I made my way through the spiderweb of cabling, an awful grinding and banging sound suddenly replaced the centrifuge-like sounds. I looked back briefly to see the ten-foot-wide doughnut literally shake itself free from its fasteners, while the inner casing behind the control panel was smoking and glowing red-hot. The computer banks were sparking and spewing clouds of thick black smoke, so I was sure that they were already way beyond repair.

I stopped being careful about the wiring to move faster. I definitely tore some equipment to pieces in the process. But let's just say that the eventual explosion caused a lot more damage.

I had my back turned to it, so I didn't see it, but I definitely heard and felt it. It shook the ground and left my ears ringing for a good minute. I'd managed to get far enough away from it that it didn't outright kill me, but I still got burned and cut up by some shrapnel. Or, well, I guess Marco's morph did.

When I looked back once more, all I could see was absolute carnage where the mainframe and its backup reactor used to be. The floor and ceiling had bulged outward from the blast. The reactor casing had completely sprung open, releasing some kind of glowing liquid that kind of looked like lava. It was easily as hot as that, too, because it'd already burnt a hole through the metal floor. If that reactor had really been right above the bridge, they'd have a field day cleaning all that up. All kinds of nearby machinery was smoking and sparking, too, damaged by the blast and the shrapnel.

≺Oh man, that was awesome!≻ Rachel yelled in my head. ≺Terrifying because it almost killed me and Jordan, but mostly awesome! Take that, Yeerks!≻

≺I take it your mainframe is destroyed, Rachel?≻ Ax asked calmly.

≺Oh yeah!≻

≺Mine too,≻ I added. ≺They're gonna have a heck of a time cleaning that up. I got cut up a bit in the blast, but I think I'll be fine.≻

≺Jake, I'm only a few minutes away from Visser One's Blade ship. Should I tell Eva we're going to try to steal the Blade ship or not?≻

≺I am in favor,≻ Ax said. ≺Eva can reasonably say that she suspects her crew to also be infiltrated by whoever caused this damage. I had not expected the results of actions this simple to be this catastrophic; it is almost like the ship is under siege. This is very poor spaceship design.≻

≺Okay, go for it, then,≻ I said, while shoving the maintenance floor access panel right off its hinges to get through quicker. Fortunately, the dropshafts were still working, despite the power outage. Most of the lights and displays in the hallways were off, though.

≺Erek, I'm back in the dropshaft, where to?≻

≺Down, tenth exit.≻

"You, again!"

There were so many panicked Controllers rushing past me that I didn't even realize that it was Ekfis four again, much less that it was directed at me. But then he grabbed me.

"What did you _do?!_ " he shouted. "Are you _trying_ to get me tortured for conspiracy?!"

He wasn't holding me very tightly, so I shook myself free, and quickly commanded the dropshaft to take me down. He followed me, though, and grabbed me again when I slowed down to disembark.

"'Stay out of the way of the Vissers and Command.' 'Don't break anything.' Which part of that was so difficult?! You are the absolute _worst_ recruit I've ever seen!"

"Listen, I don't want to hurt you. You might just be the nicest Yeerk I've ever met, but –"

He frowned at me. "Who _are_ you? If I didn't know any better, I'd say you're not even a Controller!"

He'd also loosened his grip in his confusion, so I managed to make a run for it, again. He quickly caught up to me, though.

"Hey! I'm not done talking to you!"

This time I grabbed my Dracon beam as he pulled me around. I pushed it into his stomach, trying to be discreet enough to prevent passing Controllers from noticing.

"Stop chasing me, or I'll have to shoot you."

To be honest, that was a bluff. Without primal animal instincts to back me up, not to mention having to deal with Marco's shy-girl-morph's instincts, I didn't think I'd actually have the guts to do it. But even if I had, it wouldn't have helped me. It'd have sent at least five nearby Hork-Bajir security officers my way.

"You're with the Andalite bandits, aren't you?"

Uh-oh.

To my surprise, though, he'd kept his voice down. He didn't signal any of the guards, either. Heck, he'd made it sound downright _hopeful._

"Why are you helping them?" he continued. "I've never heard of Andalites trusting even rebel Yeerks."

My mind raced as I struggled to come up with a proper response. I wanted to help him, but what if the whole thing was a trick?

≺Just shoot him already,≻ Marco interrupted.

≺What?! Then I'd just be chased down by Security instead!≻

He didn't say anything else. Some help he was.

Forget about Marco, Jake! Deal with Ekfis four.

"Look, I don't have anything to lose," he explained before I figured out what to say. "If I stay here, I'm as good as dead. As is my host, Jerry, if Visser Three will be the one to punish me for letting you and the other two roam around the ship unsupervised on your first day. Even if I'd hand you over now, and they don't punish me, I'm scheduled for reproduction in two weeks. Jerry would survive, but I know that he would rather die than end up with another Yeerk. So, you know what? Both of us would rather risk getting ourselves killed wiping some of that smugness off of the Vissers' faces."

I knew that Yeerks don't survive their way of reproducing, so under the circumstances, it wasn't all that surprising to me that Ekfis four would consider betraying the Vissers. The part that _did_ surprise me was that he legitimately seemed to care about what Jerry wanted, too.

"Why do you care so much about your host?" I thought out loud.

"Why doesn't anyone else? It's so much easier to work together than to beat them into submission."

"But why would any human _want_ to work together? What about his family? His friends? His _life?_ You _live_ here with him, right?"

"And before that Jerry barely survived on the street. He accepted infestation as a means to not starve to death. When I was assigned to him four years ago, our mutual hatred for the way our societies work connected us, and we've come to… appreciate and trust each other over time."

"B-but… you _control_ him. How is he okay with that?"

He twitched slightly, then continued. "We take turns," he shrugged. "It's not _all_ bad. I get to watch Ekfis do all the hard engineery stuff. It's like slacking off at work. Though Ekfis usually has me do the sucking-up-to-superiors part of his work, because he hates that even more than I do. Then, after our shift, we complain to each other about all the Visser and Command drama and watch TV over a nice, cold beer from the dispenser."

I think I just sort of stared at him for a while. I didn't know what to think. I wanted to hate him for betraying humanity like he had, but at the same time, he'd just been trying to make the best of a messed up situation.

From what I could tell, Marco was even more judgmental about the whole thing. That just made me even more angry with him. Was he really that much of a hypocrite?

Forget about it, Jake. Think rationally. How do you get out of this situation?

I wasn't sure what Ekfis four would do if I'd try to run again, but if he wanted to, he could signal a guard and describe me. I couldn't have that. It'd take me at least ten minutes to get back to the Blade ship. They'd catch me for sure.

I couldn't stun or kill him, either. The guards would've been all over me even quicker, then. I'd at least have to lure him to some quiet spot first.

So, could I let him come with us? Both Ekfis and Jerry seemed up for that, and I was pretty sure Erek wouldn't mind hiding them away. He can even keep Yeerks alive without a Yeerk pool, somehow, like the Yeerk he keeps in that compartment in his head.

But could I trust Ekfis enough to tell him the truth? This _whole thing_ could still be a trick. He could've been trying to gain my trust just to catch us all off-guard later. I'm sure handing the Andalite bandits over to Visser Three would've saved his life, and then some.

On the other hand, once he'd be on the Blade ship, he'd be greatly outnumbered, so we could just stun him or put him in a cell. If I'd withhold that part from him, we'd probably catch him by surprise even if he was tricking me.

It'd have to do.

"Okay, look… We can hide the two of you away and keep you both alive. But I'm not sure I can trust you yet, because for all I know you're still trying to sell us out. So you have to do exactly as I say. Okay?"

He seemed to stare through me for a few seconds, as Ekfis and Jerry discussed my offer among themselves. Then he nodded.

"I need to get to docking port D2. Run ahead of me, so I can keep my eyes on you."

He started running without question. I lowered my Dracon beam to not look as suspicious to all the other Controllers, but I still held onto it, so I could easily shoot him if I'd have to. To be honest though, he could probably have led me in a circle right back to the bridge and I wouldn't have noticed.

≺Eva just gave the command to send her crew away,≻ Rachel said half a minute later. ≺Hurry up, guys!≻

≺Jake, are you okay?≻ Erek said. ≺You haven't asked for directions for some time.≻

≺Yeah, uh, guys… I ran into Ekfis four.≻

≺Uh-oh, do you need help?≻ Rachel asked.

≺Actually, I told him to run ahead of me to the Blade ship. He's coming with us, I guess.≻


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

* * *

I explained what happened while we ran. Especially Ax was very suspicious of the whole thing, but he still agreed that there wasn't much Ekfis four could do against us once we'd reach the Blade ship.

Two of Visser One's huge Hork-Bajir were standing guard by the docking port when we got there. Ekfis stopped running when he saw them, and looked back at me.

"But that's Visser One's ship! I'm not going in there!"

"Yes, you are," I said. ≺We're here,≻ I said to my friends. ≺But Ekfis is having second thoughts. I could use some help.≻

Moments later, one of the two Hork-Bajir pulled out his Dracon beam and headed towards us. ≺ _Haff_ Ekfis. Here now!≻

Ekfis and I both put our hands up. After all, both of our designations started with Ekfis, and I wasn't sure what Eva had ordered the Hork-Bajir to do, exactly.

But the Hork-Bajir was only interested in Ekfis four. He grabbed his arm and started pulling him towards the airlock.

Ekfis turned to look at me with an expression that was as angry as it was terrified. "You tricked me! You're with Visser One!"

≺No, I'm not,≻ I responded to him in thought-speak.

"H-huh?"

Eva was waiting for us in the airlock. The Hork-Bajir who'd grabbed Ekfis proudly presented him before her. "Karrap Naghar _haff_ Ekfis four," he said.

"Yes, I can see that," Eva said, and gestured for us to follow her into the Blade ship.

≺Is it a good idea for them to come, too?≻ I asked her.

Eva didn't respond until she closed the outer airlock of the Blade ship behind us. "Don't worry about them. We made them immune, and then their Yeerks killed themselves. They'd seen Cassie, after all, so we had to do something."

"Jake!" Cassie called when the final airlock door opened. She immediately flew into my arms. "I was so worried he'd tricked you somehow… And you're hurt! What happened?"

"Just a bit of an explosion. I'll be fine."

She let go of me pretty quickly after that. She probably realized she was actually hugging Marco, in a way. Then Eva hugged me, so I handed control over to Marco for a while. He didn't really say or do anything other than hug her back, though.

≺So, what's our status?≻ I asked after a few seconds.

"Ax is trying to work out how the ship works," Cassie said.

≺Doesn't Eva know?≻

"Visser One never used the controls directly," Eva started explaining, and let go of Marco and me. "Usually she'd let her crew fly the ship, although sometimes she'd get angry and take control through a sort of thought-control interface. Like how the dropshafts work, but more advanced. Ax and I tried to get that to work earlier, but it won't listen to us. It's probably programmed to only take commands from Visser One."

"What are you planning to do with him?" Cassie asked me before I could respond. She was looking at Ekfis, while Ekfis awkwardly stared at a wall. The Hork-Bajir was still restraining him.

≺I'm not sure yet,≻ I said. ≺But I assume that this ship has at least one of those prison cells, right? Maybe we should just leave him there until we get to Earth, and then figure it out from there. Let's focus on getting everyone to safety, first.≻

Cassie didn't respond. She just continued looking at Ekfis pityingly. But Eva nodded.

"Karrap, can you take Ekfis four to the cells?"

Karrap gave the Hork-Bajir equivalent of a nod and silently pulled Ekfis along. The other Hork-Bajir followed behind.

"I'll go with them," Cassie said. "Tell Ekfis what's going on and everything. At least, we trust him enough for _that,_ right?"

≺Yeah, fine,≻ I said. ≺He's already seen your face, anyway.≻

Cassie quickly caught up with them. "S-so, you're Ekfis four and… Jerry, right?" I heard her ask in the background, just before they dropped out of sight along the dropshaft.

Eva had been operating a small control panel near the airlocks in the meantime. "Ax, can you hear me?"

≺Yes, Eva. The intercom is working.≻

"I'm pretty sure I've just sealed and locked the airlock. For as far as I know, we should be ready to go."

≺Understood. I believe I have worked out the undocking sequence, but I could use your help with that on the bridge.≻

I followed Eva there. It was just straight ahead along the center hallway of the ship.

The bridge was, well, pretty much what you'd expect. There were large windows all along the front and sides of the room, with control panels and displays underneath them. The hind section was raised a few feet above the front section, with ramps leading down on either side. The command seat was at the front of the raised section, so if you'd sit there, you'd look over any crew walking around and sitting at the terminals along the lower section.

The view wasn't as spectacular as it was in Visser One's office, because the ceiling didn't have windows. Of course not – Visser One's office was right above the bridge, so it would've been in the way.

I could still only see stars. Earth was probably below us, just out of sight.

Everyone except maybe Jordan was already demorphed. Rachel was sitting in the command seat, with Tobias perched on top of its backrest. Ax was frantically walking back and forth between control panels, and Eva quickly joined him. I didn't see Jessica or Jordan, so I figured they were elsewhere on the ship. Probably the medical room.

Rachel had swiveled around in her chair to face us when we entered the bridge. She was smiling maniacally.

"Hey, guys."

≺You seem excited,≻ I said.

"Uh-huh, I can get used to this," she said, kicking back against a railing to make the chair rotate back around. "Go to hyperspace! Man the photon cannons! Kill me some Yeerks!" she daydreamed.

≺I thought you guys decided I was the leader?≻ I joked. ≺Shouldn't _I_ be in that chair?≻

"Nuh-uh, I got here first. And it's so cushy and awesome!"

≺Well, I'm glad _someone's_ comfortable,≻ Tobias responded, struggling to hold on as Rachel kept turning the chair around. ≺Meanwhile, _I_ can't wait to get back to Earth, and fly like hawks are _supposed_ to.≻

I heard some clicking and banging sounds from the back of the ship and felt a slight jerk soon after.

"Uh… Was that normal?" I asked.

≺Yes, we have finally undocked,≻ Ax said, still rushing around.

"Awesome!" Rachel said. "They don't even know what hit them!"

≺Look, Jake, as I'm sure you've noticed, my whole body hurts from that explosion and all that running,≻ Marco said, in a way that immediately killed my mood again. ≺So if you would finally get out of my head? I'd like to demorph.≻

≺Right, sorry,≻ I said, and commanded my Yeerk instincts to leave him, hopefully for the last time. He caught me, then set me down on a nearby chair.

I felt the ship jerk into drive just as I started demorphing, much like the Bug fighter had. Almost home, I thought, although the feeling of victory wasn't nearly enough to drown out the horror of being part-Yeerk part-human again.

I finished demorphing just in time to see all the control panel displays suddenly turn red all at the same time. There was a bit of a jerk again, too. Ax and Eva looked at each other confusedly.

"Uh, red means bad, right?" Rachel asked.

≺We seem to have been locked out of the controls,≻ Ax said.

"W-well, don't look at me, I don't know what this is!" Eva said.

≺What happened, exactly?≻ Erek asked.

≺All terminals are showing an authorization failure message, as if someone or some automated system has assumed command,≻ Ax said.

"Guys, we're moving, look!" Rachel said.

We were turning, to be exact. Right back to the mothership. We were far enough away from it that it was just a little dot in the middle window at first, but it was visible nonetheless. Then it slowly started growing.

≺The Blade ship is taking us back to the mothership,≻ Ax stated. ≺I'm not sure how to stop it.≻

He looked at Eva, who helplessly shrugged and shook her head in response. Tobias spread his wings nervously. The rest of us just stared.

≺Go to the engineering sections,≻ Erek suggested. ≺You should be able to manually stop the ship from there. That should at least buy you some time.≻

Ax didn't need to be told twice, and rushed off into the hallway to the back of the ship. The rest of us stayed behind.

≺Should we try to help him…?≻ Tobias asked after a few seconds, but no one responded. We would all need Erek to walk us through the process, but only Tobias could have a two-way conversation with him right now, and I'm sure the controls weren't designed to be operated by a red-tailed hawk.

"Eva, is there any way off this ship?" I asked a few seconds later.

"J-just a single escape pod. But it's only built for one adult. M-maybe I could squeeze in there with Jessica if the rest of you morph something small, but it's not designed –"

The ship suddenly jerked sideways wildly. I lost my balance and hurtled into one of the control panels, which was fortunately still disabled, because I pressed all kinds of buttons on my way down.

The lights turned off as I fell, and there were some awful metal-on-metal scraping and banging sounds. It was like the ship was tearing itself apart around us.

There was a lot of screaming, too. I don't remember if _I_ screamed, but I probably would have.

The ship stabilized after a few seconds, and some of the lights turned back on. Not all of them, though. I wasn't sure if it was like the emergency lighting on the mothership, or if some of them were just damaged by the sudden movement.

≺Jordan sounds like she's hurt!≻ Tobias said. I didn't hear her, but a hawk's ears are much better than a human's.

"J-Jordan?!" Rachel yelled in panic, jumping up from where she'd fallen. She almost fell over again immediately and groaned, clearly having hurt herself on her way down from the command seat.

It takes a lot more to stop Rachel, though, especially when she's worried about her sister. She awkwardly stumbled off the bridge. Tobias flew after her.

"Marco, are you okay?" Eva asked as she pulled herself back to her feet.

"Yeah," he groaned.

≺The engines appear to be disabled, now…≻ Ax announced from the back of the ship. Even he sounded a bit shaky, for as far as that's possible with thought-speak. I don't think even he expected the override to be this violent.

≺Guys!≻ Tobias called out. ≺Jordan is stuck under some kind of machinery that came crashing down right through the ceiling panels. She's screaming her head off, but I'm pretty sure she'll be okay if we get it off of her and she morphs. Rachel and I are morphing grizzly and Hork-Bajir to do that right now, but it looks really heavy.≻

≺I will help as well,≻ Ax said. ≺You are in the medical bay, correct?≻

≺Yeah.≻

Eva had returned to the control panels in the meantime, and pushed a couple buttons. A speaker embedded in the control panel came to life, relaying Jordan's panicked wails from the medical bay.

"Do you need more help?" Eva asked.

≺Cassie and the two Hork-Bajir just rushed in to help as well, I think we'll be okay. Just find a way to get us back to Earth. Ax, you too, you're of more help on the bridge. We'll manage with the two Hork-Bajir.≻

"Jake, can you hear me?" Cassie called over the intercom.

"Yeah, are you okay?"

"Y-yeah, I just fell into a wall, I'm fine… I um… I just wanted to add that Ekfis and Jerry are really worried about the state of the ship after what just happened, they said it's not designed to deal with sudden movement like that… They're still in the cell, but they offered to help us deal with any damage and get the ship under control again."

"Even after you told them who we are?"

"Yeah. Both of them want to help, if only to mess with Visser Three."

"I don't trust Ekfis," Marco said. "I think it's stupid we even brought him here. For all we know, he's the one who took over control through that thought-link thing, and is now trying to get to engineering to turn the engines back on."

"I really don't get that impression, Marco…"

"He's a _Yeerk,_ Cassie. You can't trust a Yeerk. Period."

"Well, do you have a better idea?" I asked.

"Not yet. But we're not going anywhere anytime soon, so let's not do anything rash."

Ax had rushed back to the front section of the bridge during the discussion, and was scanning along the control panels with all four of his eyes worriedly.

"Ax, what do you think?" I asked.

≺I am not sure. We seem to have stopped with respect to the mothership at a distance of about three of your miles, but many of the ship's internal systems were damaged, and we are still locked out.≻

≺Hmm,≻ Erek said. ≺I'm afraid I'm not sure what to do, either. I know a lot less about Visser One's Blade ship than –≻

Ax interrupted him. ≺Prince Jake, it appears that we have also been transmitting a distress signal, and the sensors have picked up that Visser Three's Blade ship just left the primary cargo bay of the mothership. They are heading in our direction.≻

"Terrific," Marco groaned. "Of course _Visser Three_ would be the one to come for us."

"And he's hailing us!" Eva called out.

≺The connection will open momentarily,≻ Ax warned. ≺He will see us unless I disable the camera. Prince Jake?≻

"Do it, Ax!"

I'd figured that by 'disabling' he'd meant pressing a button somewhere, but he wasn't that subtle. He grabbed Eva's Dracon beam and fired at a tiny panel just above the middle window.

It didn't stand a chance, and instantly exploded into a cloud of fiery smoke. It left a hole much deeper than I'd expected the hull to be thick judging by the windows, but apparently those windows were actually just really convincing displays. The middle display flickered, and started showing swaths of impossible colors near where the Dracon beam had hit.

Just a second later, the displays lit up to show a view of Visser Three's Blade ship's bridge. Or they tried to, anyway. They showed most of Visser Three's head and body in bright shades of green and pink. It almost made him look funny, or at least not as dangerous as he actually was. But Visser Three was nothing to sneeze at.

"Visser One, it appears that you are having some trouble with your ship," he said in an electronic voice. His ship must have been translating his thought-speak into normal speech.

If it weren't for the sparking noises coming from the damaged panel, you could've heard a pin drop. I think every one of us was holding their breath. Even Jordan had quieted down over the intercom.

"Perhaps one of your servants decided to end your reign of madness before you could fully betray the Empire?" he added.

"What are you talking about?" Eva said. She looked terrified, but still managed to sound somewhat confident.

"I am not a fool, Visser One. Your careless attempt to steal project six-five-three's research material for yourself has not gone unnoticed."

"Well, neither has yours. The Council will certainly hear of your attempts to spy on the project after control was rightfully handed over to me."

"By all means, _do_ inform them. It will only strengthen my case, as _I_ have already informed them that I have the data backed up on my Blade ship. They _commended_ me for doing so after I reported your transgressions, and are currently in deliberation over stripping you of your rank entirely, on multiple counts of treason and conspiracy."

"Th-that is preposterous!"

"Is it. We shall see. I would advise against trying to leave. I might just interpret that as an act of aggression."

Visser Three and his bridge disappeared from the screens.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

* * *

"D-did you guys get all that…?" I asked.

"Y-yeah…" Cassie said.

"We can't use the escape pod, now," Eva thought out loud, while pacing back and forth nervously. "Visser Three would just shoot it down and tell the Council we attacked first. The only way out now is getting control over the whole ship to flee!"

"But then he'd just shoot the _whole_ ship down!" Marco complained.

"This ship should be a bit stronger than Visser Three's. We'd get shot up pretty badly, but I think we'd make it out alive."

≺We do not have a full crew, though,≻ Ax said. ≺Even if we did, we cannot fly the ship in this state, let alone fire weapons.≻

"We need Ekfis four's help," I said. "We have to risk it."

"I'll go get him," Eva offered.

"No, you and Ax stay here in case Visser Three contacts us again," I said quickly.

"I'll do it with the Hork-Bajir," Cassie said over the intercom.

"Th-they just freed J-Jordan, b-by the way," Jessica stuttered. "Sh-she looks really bad, b-but she's morphing…"

≺Prince Jake, Visser Three's Blade ship seems to be maneuvering to dock with us,≻ Ax warned.

"I locked the airlock manually, but they'll cut through it eventually!" Eva panicked.

I leaned against a control panel and covered my face.

Why does everything always have to go wrong at the last minute? We totally had this! Now we were completely trapped!

The ones of us who could morph could hide, I remember thinking. Morph insects and crawl behind a panel somewhere, and hope that the mothership wouldn't be able to scan for non-Controller lifeforms without main power. But it'd be no use, at least unless we'd first kill Ekfis, Eva, the Hork-Bajir, and Jessica. Any one of them would eventually tell Visser Three everything they knew if he'd catch them alive. And even _if_ we'd cowardly sacrifice them, _then_ where would we go?

We had to fight, there was no way around it. Buy Ekfis, Eva, and Ax as much time as possible to get us moving again. And then try to flee. Maybe, just _maybe_ we'd have a chance that way.

"What the heck happened here?" Ekfis exclaimed behind me, interrupting my breakdown. He'd just entered the bridge with Cassie and the Hork-Bajir, and was staring at the damaged display and camera panel. "You guys are somehow even more destructive than the Vissers!"

I groaned. "Ax, Eva, and Ekfis, do whatever it takes to get this ship moving again. Everyone else except Jessica, head to the airlock and morph the toughest animal you have."

There was no discussion. Everyone just went. I started making my way to the airlock as well.

I was a bit startled when I got to the hallway. The last time I'd walked through there it'd been completely straight, but now it was so bent that I couldn't even see the door to the cargo bay at the end of it. Some of the wall and ceiling panels had come loose, too, exposing all manner of tubing and wiring. That emergency stop had done a lot more damage than I thought.

Cassie and the two Hork-Bajir were a bit ahead of me. They almost ran right into Rachel, Tobias, and Jordan as they barged out of the dropshaft at the rear end of the hallway. Rachel and Tobias were still in their grizzly bear and Hork-Bajir morphs, and Jordan had apparently decided to morph gorilla to heal earlier. There was still some blood on her legs, but she wouldn't have been bleeding anymore after morphing.

Visser Three's ship was just starting to dock when Marco and I got to the cargo bay. The metal clanging sounds were almost deafening back there. Or maybe it was just louder because they were forcefully docking to us.

≺Rachel, I'm scared…≻ Jordan whimpered. Rachel walked up to her and nuzzled her, but didn't say anything. At least not publicly.

≺I think we're all scared,≻ Tobias said.

"Visser One, open your airlock, or we will force entry," Visser Three's metallic voice boomed over the PA system.

I was a bit surprised that he didn't just use thought-speak now that he must have been within range. Maybe Visser One's ship was shielded, like the cells.

Eva didn't respond to Visser Three, at least not that I could hear over the PA. A couple seconds later we started hearing Dracon fire from behind the airlock doors.

≺Guys, you'd better get morphing,≻ Tobias added.

Right. My fiercest morph that would comfortably fit in the ship was a Siberian tiger. I focused on its image.

Morphing is always a little awkward. It never quite does the same thing, and usually parts of your body end up going through downright ridiculous shapes. But after morphing a Yeerk? Man, I'll take a tiger.

My bones crunched as they lengthened and shortened. My skin sprouted orange, black, and white fur. My mouth and nose bulged forward to form a snout, and my ears moved back and changed shape. A tail sprouted from my bottom as I fell forward, landing on my brand-new front paws. Sensory information that no human could ever dream of started flowing in as the tiger mind joined mine.

Easy.

"Dracon here," one of the Hork-Bajir called out. He'd opened a crate near the front of the cargo bay and took out a second Dracon beam. "Two better than one," he added, and threw it to the other Hork-Bajir. Then he threw two more to Tobias, and grabbed a second one for himself before closing the crate again.

My tiger eyes tracked the guns as he threw them. I knew I could've easily lunged at any one of them and grabbed it in my jaw with ultimate precision.

Even the Hork-Bajir weren't enough to scare my tiger mind. They confused it somewhat, and it certainly wouldn't have tried to attack them unprovoked, but fear was not something that the tiger knew. It was king, and anyone who would dare to challenge it would know its wrath.

The human part of my mind was still terrified, of course. But one of the best things about morphing apex predators is that you can just surrender yourself to their instincts, and they'll do the fighting for you.

I let my tiger mind scan my surroundings. In front of me, the airlock. To my left, several crates that would serve as cover, a grizzly bear, and a gorilla. That would be Rachel and Jordan. To my right, more crates, something that looked a bit like a shipping container, a wolf, and another gorilla. Those would be Cassie and Marco. Behind me, on the raised platform with the door leading further into the ship, three Hork-Bajir, each wielding two Dracon beams.

All of them are our allies, I told my tiger instincts. Our prey is behind the door.

All my senses focused on it. I heard the Dracon fire hitting its back side. I saw the red-hot glow of the slowly melting metal by the hinges. I smelled the burning paint and electronics. I calculated exactly how much force I would need to apply with my legs to lunge directly at the door, and strained my hindquarters in preparation.

Then I waited.

All hell broke loose about a minute later, when a Hork-Bajir kicked the door off its hinges and barged in after it.

It was his last mistake. I lunged. My powerful jaw ended up exactly where I'd wanted it to, right around the Hork-Bajir's throat. I bit down on it mercilessly.

The Hork-Bajir roared as he lost his balance and fell sideways. I released and jumped over him before he hit the floor, careful to stay out of range of his bladed arms, legs, and forehead. Rachel's grizzly morph jumped on top of him to finish him, while sending out a roar that made even my tiger brain glad that she was on my side.

" _Hruthin!_ Andalite! _Ghafrash!_ " a second Hork-Bajir yelled, before getting shot by two Dracon beams at the same time.

"Free or dead!" the Hork-Bajir who'd shot him shouted.

Then several humans and Hork-Bajir poured through the airlock at once, shooting mostly at random to get inside. Cassie lunged at one of the humans from her side, biting down on her arm to get her to drop her Dracon beam. I did the same for one of the other humans, while Rachel threw herself at one of the Hork-Bajir. Jordan stuck close to Rachel, fighting off anyone who tried to slash or shoot at her.

It wasn't enough. There were too many, too close together, and us fighting near the airlock meant that Tobias and the two Hork-Bajir couldn't easily shoot without risk of hitting one of us.

≺Aaaagh!≻ Rachel yelled, roaring loudly all the while. One of the human Controllers had managed to shoot her, though he didn't live to tell the tale.

≺Rachel!≻ Jordan yelled, and tried to shield her from getting hit again. In her panic, she didn't pay attention to a nearby Hork-Bajir, who took the chance to slash deeply into one of her arms. She swung at him wildly in response, sending him flying halfway across the room, but she was hurt nonetheless.

≺Jake, look out!≻ Tobias warned. My senses were so overwhelmed by the amount of enemies around me that I'd missed the Hork-Bajir next to me. I narrowly avoided getting gutted by his shoulder blade by leaping backward, receiving only a deep gash along the side of my head instead.

≺Help!≻ Cassie yelled. She was cornered, desperately dodging Dracon fire from two human Controllers as they slowly moved in on her, having taken cover from our three Hork-Bajir behind a crate. She'd already been hit in one of her legs, and was having a hard time moving.

I lunged over the crate, biting down on the neck of one of them and mauling the other at the same time. They didn't last long, but others quickly started moving in to take their place.

≺Fall back to the hallway!≻ I yelled. ≺There's too many of them!≻

I jumped around the crates a bunch to distract most of the Controllers while Cassie, Rachel, and Jordan moved to the front of the cargo bay. As I looked around the room, I noticed that one of our Hork-Bajir had been shot down already. Tobias and the other one were hurt, too.

≺Prince Jake, Ekfis four and I have a theory…≻ Ax called to me privately.

≺Not now, Ax! I'm busy!≻

He continued anyway.

≺We believe that Marco may be under Visser One's control.≻


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

* * *

≺What?!≻ I yelled back at Ax, as Cassie and I lunged behind Tobias after Rachel and Jordan. ≺But you said it was impossible for two Yeerks to fit in one human, and I didn't notice a thing!≻

Ax didn't immediately respond. I guess he wasn't sure how that was possible.

It was only then that I realized I hadn't even seen Marco fight. The last time I'd seen him was just before we all focused on the door.

I don't think the others had noticed, either. We were all way too focused on the fight or licking our wounds. We also weren't used to having Jordan with us during a fight yet, and Jordan and Marco's battle morphs are almost identical.

I turned around and scanned the cargo bay again, successfully avoiding the Dracon skirmish that was still ongoing, but I didn't see him. He couldn't have left without anyone noticing, though. The cargo bay only had two doors. One led to certain death, and Tobias was covering the other one.

≺Tobias, when did you last see Marco?≻ I asked him privately.

He stopped shooting for a second and looked at me awkwardly. ≺I thought he was with Rachel?≻

≺No, that's Jordan, he was to my right before the fight started.≻

≺Then I don't know! I was looking at the door!≻

Okay, Jake, if Marco really _was_ under Visser One's control somehow, where would he be, now? He'd probably have hidden himself. He'd have tried to privately thought-speak to the barrage of Controllers to try to explain the situation, but failing that, he'd have tried to hide completely. Which means he might try to demorph and then morph something small.

≺Cassie, can you smell Marco?≻ I asked her privately. Her wolf form had the best nose of all of us.

≺I… Uh… Y-yeah, he smells half-human, half-gorilla… But why would he demorph? Why didn't he fall back with us? Is he okay?!≻

≺ _Where,_ Cassie?≻

She poked her nose out between the Hork-Bajir and turned her head slowly to find the source of the smell, also successfully ignoring all the incoming Dracon fire. I guess Visser Three's Controllers were more worried about the Dracon fire from our three Hork-Bajir than the two of us, now.

≺There,≻ she said, looking all the way to the front-right of the room. ≺He's somewhere in that corner of the room, so he has to be hiding in or behind that container…≻

≺Tobias, Cassie and I think Marco is in that container over there,≻ I said, still including only the two of them. ≺He's demorphing. Can you get him?≻

≺U-uh, yeah, of course,≻ he said. ≺But… What? Huh? Why is he demorphing _there?_ I'm _sure_ I didn't see him get hurt, especially not badly enough for –≻

≺Get him over here, _now,_ ≻ I urged. ≺Be ready to stun him if you have to.≻

≺ _Stun_ him?≻

≺Jake, what –≻

≺I don't have time to explain!≻

Tobias moved off the raised platform and strafed over to the open end of the container, blindly shooting one of his two Dracon beams around the room.

≺Marco? What –≻ he said when he got there, but he didn't finish his sentence before stunning him with his other Dracon beam. ≺H-he pulled a gun on me!≻

≺We have regained control!≻ Ax called out to everyone. ≺I'm going to engineering to restart the engines, fall back to the hallway and seal the door on my signal.≻

≺Tobias, carry him back here!≻ I reminded him.

≺R-right!≻

He pulled him from the container and swung him over his back. He looked mostly human, but still had some of his gorilla fur. He'd almost finished demorphing.

The two other Hork-Bajir covered Tobias as he brought him into the hallway. Yes, two – even the downed Hork-Bajir was still shooting. But both of them were shot up enough that I didn't think they'd survive.

≺I am in engineering,≻ Ax called, just when Tobias stepped into the hallway. ≺Seal the door!≻

I was about to try to figure out how the door controls worked when the downed Hork-Bajir turned around and crawled over to the controls on the other side.

"Karrap and Lafnagh Naghar die free!" he roared as he commanded the door to close. It clicked shut, and gave a short beep to indicate that it was locked.

≺Sealed!≻ I yelled.

≺Starting engines now,≻ Ax said.

He didn't really have to tell us. The jerk that had bent the main corridor was _nothing_ in comparison.

We were flung several feet along the hallway, toward the bridge. Panels snapped off the walls and ceiling lights shattered as the whole ship flexed. Pipes running along the ceiling snapped, spilling out various liquids one moment, and sucking in air the next. A terrible metal whine emerged from behind the door, followed by the deafening bang of explosive decompression.

That definitely wasn't the correct way to disconnect two Blade ships from each other.

The ship became eerily silent only a fraction of a second later, when all the air had escaped from the cargo bay. Those two Hork-Bajir who we'd tried to free were definitely dead, now. As were dozens of Visser Three's Controllers.

None of them deserved it. But all of this was on Visser One and Visser Three. They didn't give us any other choice.

I looked at Marco. The ship had returned control to us exactly when Tobias had stunned him, so I guess Visser One really _was_ inside him somehow. She must have been overriding the bridge controls through the thought-control interface Ax and Eva tried to use earlier.

But _how?_ I was in control of him for like three quarters of an hour, and I didn't notice anything. _Especially_ not the presence of another Yeerk inside Marco's skull. I mean, I guess he was behaving strangely, but… could all that have really been Visser One talking?

≺J-Jake, why did I just shoot Marco?≻ Tobias asked publicly, interrupting my thoughts.

≺Yeah, why _did_ you shoot Marco?≻ Jordan accused. That surprised me; she's usually pretty quiet.

≺Why didn't he help us fight in the first place?≻ Rachel asked, placing the blame on Marco, instead.

≺Don't ask me how,≻ I said, ≺but I think Marco was infested by Visser One.≻


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

* * *

≺What?! How?!≻ Rachel demanded.

≺My theory is that Visser One morphed herself along with Marco when she had him morph into his human female morph,≻ Ax explained. ≺Like your morphing suits, she would have been stored in Zero-space along with the rest of Marco's mass. But I have to admit that I do not fully understand the details. This has never been done before. Prince Jake, did you not notice anything weird about Marco? If my understanding of the situation is correct, you would have sensed the thoughts of Visser One instead of Marco's.≻

Everyone looked at me.

≺I-I… H-he was behaving… I-I thought he was just angry because…≻

≺Because _what?_ ≻ Rachel demanded.

I failed to finish that sentence. Why _would_ Marco have been so angry?

Because I held a gun to his mom's head? That was for _everyone's_ protection, even her own, because who knows what Visser One would have done if she'd still been controlling her? I'd have thought Marco would've been smart enough to see that.

Because he didn't get his way when we voted to get rid of the research? Sure, Marco would sometimes be upset about my decisions, but not like _that,_ right? And this was a group decision.

Because I didn't let him demorph to say goodbye to his mom, then? I suppose that could've made sense, but… I could tell that _really_ wasn't about his mom. But if _that_ wasn't the reason, why _did_ he want to demorph so badly?

Could Visser One just not take control of the ship while she was morphed along with Marco…?

≺Look, Rachel, whatever happened, happened,≻ Cassie broke the silence. ≺Let's just demorph to heal, keep a very close eye on Marco, and focus on what to do next. We can talk about this later.≻

I wanted to hug her for that. I was so happy that Cassie was back in the group…

She's always had this calming effect on the group. Whenever an argument would break out, she'd almost always be the one to stop it. She'd deny it, but I really think the group would fall apart without her.

And I'm not just saying that because I _like_ her. At least, I don't think I am.

≺What's going on outside right now?≻ Tobias asked as we started to demorph.

≺We are flying at the maximum regular-space speed that the ship can manage with this amount of damage, but Visser Three is gaining on us,≻ Ax reported. ≺He will be within shooting-range in approximately three minutes.≻

≺Guys, I'm sorry to say that I can't hide the ship when you're being chased,≻ Erek said. ≺It'd take me several minutes to do after you'd land.≻

≺So we have to destroy Visser Three's Blade ship…≻ Rachel said. Even she didn't sound all that confident.

≺Or outrun or trick him somehow,≻ Cassie added.

"Whatever you kids decide to do, we could use your help on the bridge," Ekfis said over the PA. Or was that Jerry talking? "Here's Visser Three for y'all again, by the way. He's been itching for a conversation for a while, now."

" _Visser One!"_ his computerized voice raged a second later. "If you think you can outrun me, you are sorely mistaken! I will watch you _burn_ in your ship, find whatever is left, and personally feed it to my Taxxons!"

"Yeah, I love you too, Three," Ekfis chortled. I'm not sure if he'd closed the connection before or after he'd said that.

Cassie was the first to finish demorphing, as usual. "I'm going to check up on Jessica, but I'll join you on the bridge after." She ran over to the nearest dropshaft.

The rest of us finished about half a minute later. Rachel spoke first, breaking a bit of an awkward silence. "I guess even if we die on this ship, we'll at least have given Visser Three a really bad day."

≺So… What do we do with Marco?≻ Tobias wondered.

"I'll stay with him," Jordan said out of nowhere.

Everyone looked at her for an explanation, to which her face turned red as a tomato. "U-uh… I-I mean… N-not because he's half-morphed like that now, b-but…"

She stopped talking. We stared at her.

"But because you're weird," Rachel eventually finished for her, shaking her head. She was grinning, though.

"Um… Okay, well, I think we're better off taking him with us to the bridge…" I said, trying to ignore the weirdness. "I don't really want to leave him here if we're about to get into a dogfight."

"Got it," Rachel said. "I'll take his shoulders, you two take his legs."

We couldn't really lift him up completely, but it was close enough. Tobias landed on his stomach, and kept his eyes firmly locked on his head. If Visser One would've woken up and tried to make a run for it, he'd definitely have noticed.

≺Visser Three has already opened fire on us,≻ Ax said when we got to the bridge. ≺Our shield is still protecting us, but it will deplete within approximately two minutes at this rate.≻

"The weapons consoles are over there," Ekfis pointed. "Just use the joysticks to aim and fire. Try to shoot Visser Three's weapons when his shields deplete. If you hurry they might go out before ours, because ours should be more powerful."

≺You guys go do that,≻ Tobias said. ≺I'll watch Marco. I can't use a joystick like this, anyway.≻

I hurried over to one of the consoles. It looked almost like a game console in the arcade, and was just as intuitive. I was shooting lasers in no-time.

See, mom? I told you video games would save my life one day.

It looked just as fake as those arcade games, too. Initially, anyway. The display only showed the outline of Visser Three's ship as an overlay, probably because it was still cloaked. The Dracon fire from the turret I was controlling was just a straight, orange line across the center of my screen, always in the same spot, while the stars seemed to rotate at my command. I didn't see any explosions where the beam impacted Visser Three's ship, so I figured they were behind the cloak as well. And the shields of Visser One's ship were so good that I didn't feel or hear anything when Visser Three would shoot at us, or when Ax would move us to evade. There was just an orange flash on the window displays above me and to my right every few seconds.

It was surreal. Playing shooting games in the arcade with Marco would never be the same. Ironically, if we'd make it out of this mess alive, I'd probably be grounded for supposedly doing exactly that all day and evening, instead of going to school.

After a minute or so, our shields started to weaken noticeably. The ship started to shake a little whenever we'd get hit, more vigorously every time, and the control panels to my left lit up with a bunch of illegible warning messages.

Another minute later, a loud alarm went off over the PA speakers, and the lights that survived the two jerks from the engines started to flicker.

"How much more of this is Visser Three's ship going to take?!" I shouted to raise my voice over the alarm.

"I think we've already punched through most of their shields," Ekfis yelled back. "Their cloak just isn't out yet. Focus on the inner sections of their wings."

I tried, but it was really difficult now, with all the shaking. Like we'd gone up a few levels in the arcade game, and were starting to meet our match.

≺We are now passing over your country's landmass,≻ Ax said. ≺Should I try to land?≻

"Yes," Eva said. "We're dead if this ship is disabled here!"

A loud hissing sound coming from further down the hallway after the latest Dracon beam hit confirmed that.

"We're bleeding air from the back of the main corridor," Ekfis yelled. "I'll go seal it off!"

"Wait!" Rachel called out. "Where's Cassie and Jessica? Don't lock them out!"

≺Cassie, Jessica, get to the bridge _right now,_ we're losing air!≻ Tobias warned them.

I took a moment to look around the bridge. Most of the control panels were showing error messages, now. Some had turned off entirely. There was a little bit of smoke coming from the hallway, though not as much as you'd see in the movies. Like, it wasn't like the control panels outright exploded in our faces whenever we'd get hit.

Earth was shaking back and forth along the window displays now, as Ax continued to evade Visser Three's weapons. It was taking up most of the front view already, and was growing fast. Streaks of red-hot glowing air flickered along the side-view windows.

"There!" Jordan suddenly shouted. "Look at Visser Three's ship!"

I looked back at my monitor to see that its cloak had died.

We'd left hundreds of burn marks on it. Some were just scorched black, but others were still glowing, and a few had cut through the outer hull altogether. One of those was bleeding something that was burning bright purple.

Then I noticed just how much damage our forceful separation had done. I could only see it when they evaded sideways, but most of what had been Visser Three's cargo bay had been completely torn off.

"Whoa!"

"Ha-hah!" Rachel cheered.

"Don't get your hopes up, guys," Eva warned. "I don't think we look much better."

"What did I miss?" Ekfis asked from behind me.

I looked back to see him, Cassie, and Jessica slowly walking onto the bridge. Ekfis and Cassie had to hold Jessica upright. She was only just awake enough to hold the bottom of her shirt up with her one good hand, turning it into a sort of pouch. I didn't see it at the time, but she was carrying a bunch of injection patches in there.

Ekfis and Cassie gently sat her down in one of the nearby control panel seats. Cassie stayed with her, but Ekfis rushed back over to the control panel he'd been using before.

"Uh, guys, this isn't good," he said a few seconds later. "Most of our rear shielding is gone, if they hit our engines… Turn the ship around and fly in reverse!"

≺But we would not be able to fly nearly as fast, and the reentry heating may damage the rear,≻ Ax complained.

"Look around you, the rear is _already_ damaged!"

≺Prince Jake?≻

"Do it, Ax!" I said, as if I knew what I was talking about.

I spun my gun turret to compensate for the ship turning around and started firing again. Visser Three closed in on us rapidly at first, but slowed down to match our speed in time.

Jordan, Rachel, and Eva focused their Dracon beams on Visser Three's weapons. It was much easier for us to target specific things now that he was closer, but the same thing was obviously true for Visser Three's crew.

I decided to focus on the damage near where that purple fluid had spilled out before. It'd run dry already, but I figured it'd left that area particularly vulnerable. I had to switch to a different turret two times as Visser Three's crew slowly but surely started taking our weapons out, but I eventually ended up ripping a huge hole in their left wing. It exposed an engineering section much like the ones we'd seen on the mothership. One shot later, all the Dracon beams on the left side of Visser Three's ship shut down. His ship also banked sideways violently.

Then Ax pulled us up sharply. Visser Three's pilot overshot us, probably because he was busy trying to compensate for losing all the systems in his left wing. As I turned my turret to follow him, I saw that we were now flying over the ocean.

We weren't done yet, though. Visser Three's ship pulled back up and was back on our tail in no-time despite the damage. Even without half of their systems, their forward speed was faster than our reverse.

≺I am holding an altitude of ten miles, flying at a speed of approximately two-thousand miles per hour,≻ Ax reported. ≺We will reach the shore in six minutes at this speed.≻

Well, I suppose that's still pretty fast for a reverse gear.

"I think they just shot down my last turret!" Jordan called out. "I can't switch anymore!"

"Focus on their right wing," I told Eva and Rachel. "Maybe we can take that thing out before –"

I was interrupted by a massive explosion underneath me, sending me, Jordan, and Rachel flying into the midsection of the bridge. So much for consoles not exploding in our faces, I guess.

I felt my back snap as I bent backward around a railing. Then I whacked the back of my head into the floor as I flung around it.


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18**

* * *

When I opened my eyes, Cassie was there. Right above me.

She was all blurry, though.

Cassie, why are you so blurry?

She was trying to tell me something, but I didn't hear her. There was just this ringing sound.

I guess my mind was kind of blurry, too.

Then the world shook around me. Or was Cassie shaking me? I wasn't sure. Maybe both.

My whole body was numb, like it was… gone? No, that wasn't right. I wasn't sure what that feeling was all about.

I blinked a few times, and Cassie sort of came into focus. She squeezed her eyes shut, sending tears down her face. They landed on my forehead.

Her face was all twisted up and weird. I didn't want to see her like that… So I closed my eyes, and recalled her normal, pretty face, instead.

She was with me in this… brilliantly white, featureless room. I was laying on my back on the floor, and she was there next to me, smiling…

 _Prince Jake! You must morph! We have very little time!_

Morph?

 _Just morph, man! Anything small!_

I didn't want to morph. I wanted to lie there with Cassie.

I don't think she realizes how pretty she is. It probably didn't help that everyone was always talking about how Rachel would grow up to be a model, while they pretty much ignored Cassie.

She'd even worn a dress to school a few times in the past few weeks, like she had to compensate for something. It was hard to miss, considering that her usual outfit consisted of some old pair of jeans and some messy shirt that she'd probably shoveled animal waste around in before going to school.

I kind of pretended not to notice. I know how self-conscious she gets about that stuff. Besides, it never mattered to me what she wears. She'll always be pretty to me.

 _Cassie, what are you doing?!_

I opened my eyes again. That seemed to be the only part of my body that would still listen to me. Cassie's face was slowly turning back to normal, but she still looked so sad and lost.

I tried to tell her how pretty she was, but my mouth didn't want to work. Without being able to do anything, I couldn't cheer her up. So I closed my eyes again.

I guess I wasn't doing too well. But Cassie was there with me. That's what mattered.

I looked at my white-room Cassie. She looked back at me, still smiling that perfect smile, and ran her fingers through my hair.

Then she closed her eyes, gently touched my cheek, and bent forward over me. She kissed me. I wished I could kiss her back, but my mouth still refused to move.

 _Come on, Cassie, please, we have to go!_

I opened my eyes briefly again. Visser One was pulling on Cassie's arm, trying to take her away from me. But Cassie refused to move, and shouted something at her.

You tell her, Cass.

 _You have to!_

 _Jake would want you to save yourself! Come on! Morph!_

Cassie shouted something again. Then Visser One let go of her, and slowly backed off.

She looked back at me. Her face was completely her own again, but she still looked so desperate… so I closed my eyes again.

My Cassie lay down next to me, resting her head on my chest. Then she reached over me and grabbed my hand.

If only that moment could have lasted forever, but I knew, deep down, that it wasn't going to. I wouldn't last much longer. I was dying.

I ignored it. I didn't even want to think about it. I just wanted to think about Cassie.

But then she slowly let go of my hand. The weight from her head on my chest reduced, too. It was like she was fading away. Soon, only the white room would be left.

I tried to grab her, or tell her to stay with me, but I still couldn't move.

Fear washed over me. I didn't want her to leave! She wouldn't really leave me alone, would she? I didn't want to die alone!

Cassie, come back! Please!

Her image faded. She was gone.

I was alone.

Then I felt something sting my ear. Black stains appeared all over the white room, swallowing it up completely within seconds.

Cassie! Help me! Please, come back!

 _Jake, I'm here._

Where are you? I'm scared! I don't want to die alone!

She didn't respond, but I felt her despair. She didn't want me to die, at all.

Then it felt like I was shrinking. Shrinking, while stuck in absolute dark, without being able to move…

I was terrified. Was I going to shrink down into nothingness? Disappear like Cassie just had? Was this the end?

Cassie, are you still there? Where did you go? Say something!

 _I'm still here…_

I think I'm shrinking!

 _It'll be okay, Jake… Don't be scared…_

And you're going to stay with me?

 _Always._

As I shrunk, my mind started to clear up. I started to feel things again, hear things, smell things, see things. They weren't under my control, though. Something still felt off about that.

I was forced into looking out along the front of the ship with falcon eyes. I could see every detail of Visser Three's Blade ship in front of me, even though it must have been at least a mile out.

Then I looked around. The left side of the bridge, where the Dracon beam controls used to be, was completely shredded and ablaze. Ekfis was on the other side of the bridge, desperately pressing buttons on the small amount of control panels that were still doing something. Other than him and me, the bridge was empty.

≺Jerry, d-did they leave?≻ I felt myself say.

"No, they're waiting for you! But I can't keep this ship flying forever, so you get your butt to that pod, right now!"

I flew to Ekfis' shoulder, instead.

≺Jerry, I-I –≻

"You don't owe me anything, girl. I was dead anyway. Now get out of here!"

Then I flew away. Through the door of the bridge. Into the crumbling passageway. Left turn, up into the dropshaft. It wasn't working anymore, so my wings really had to work to get me to the top level in such a small area. Out of the dropshaft, left turn into the upper hallway. There was a hole in the roof further to the back of the ship, that I could see the sunset through. The turbulence from the wind that was rushing through the hole was so bad that I could hardly fly. But then I made a sharp left turn again, slamming right into Eva's stomach before I had a chance to slow down. She caught me.

The room she was in was circular. It couldn't have been more than one and a half feet across, but somehow, Marco and Jessica were squeezed in there, too. Both of them seemed to be unconscious.

Tobias was also there, perched on Eva's shoulder.

≺Jake?!≻ he yelled at me.

≺Huh?≻ Jordan asked.

≺Is he here?!≻ Rachel added.

≺Prince Jake?≻ Ax said.

≺It's both of us!≻ I felt myself respond. ≺Get us out of here, Eva!≻

A door closed behind me, squishing me deeper into Eva's stomach. Then there was something that sounded a bit like an explosion below us, followed by the sound of air violently rushing by just outside of the room.

I squeezed my head around to look back. There was a window, so I could see outside.

Both Blade ships were a little ways underneath us, still chasing each other, with ours still flying in reverse. Both were absolutely wrecked. Only Visser Three's ship was still firing the occasional Dracon beam from its one or two remaining functional turrets.

Then our Blade ship slowed down abruptly. The force was so great that one of its two wings sheared right off in a fiery explosion.

Visser Three's pilot tried to pull up to evade, but Ekfis four wouldn't have it. He used our remaining engine to move right in their path.

An escape pod much like ours ejected from Visser Three's ship, just before the ships rammed each other. With my peregrine falcon eyes, I could just barely make out a blue shape behind its window.

Then there was just fire. A huge orange and purple fireball and a barrage of rubble replaced the impact site.

The two Blade ships, and everyone who'd still been aboard, were no more.


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter 19**

* * *

Everyone was silent for the next couple of minutes. We all needed some time to process what had happened.

How narrowly we'd escaped death yet again, but also how Ekfis four, Jerry, and those two Hork-Bajir died to get us there.

How heavy a blow we'd struck against the Yeerks, not only capturing Visser One and freeing Eva, but also utterly destroying their two most dangerous ships near Earth and damaging the mothership.

How we'd managed to get Jessica away from them somehow, destroyed their research after all, and even got away with a few immunity patches in the process.

But what exactly happened with Cassie just now? Even now that I was okay again, I was struggling to piece it together from those feverish memories.

≺You saved my life, didn't you?≻ I eventually asked through the Yeerk link between us.

She didn't respond until a few seconds later. ≺Y-you wouldn't morph, so… I-I just figured… I-if Visser One could morph herself along with Marco, I'd be able to morph myself along with you even as you'd shrink.≻

I could tell that she hadn't been all that sure about that plan, though. She'd gone into it accepting that morphing like that could have killed us both, not to mention that the others might have had to leave without her. She chose death over going on without me.

Wow.

So… Did she really kiss me? Or was that part just in my head?

I could have asked her, of course, but I didn't. Heck, I figured she'd have been able to sense me _considering_ to ask her, but she didn't say anything, either.

It's funny, I guess. We'd just spent the day picking a fight with a terrifying alien invasion force, yet somehow we were still too scared to ask each other about our feelings.

The escape pod set us down in a clearing in the forest about five minutes later. It must have been quite a sight – an adult woman, a guy from _Planet of the Apes,_ a girl from a zombie movie, two birds of prey, and a handful of cockroaches bursting out of a tiny, scorched pod in the middle of nowhere. Not to mention all the demorphing that followed.

When we finished, we decided to wait for Erek to show up. Cassie had told him through the thought-speak extenders where she'd hidden the device that allows us to pass on our morphing abilities, so he could take that with him. It was nothing short of a miracle that Jessica had survived that long already, and we'd landed a few miles away from the hideout, so we weren't about to push her luck with a one-and-a-half-hours' trek through the woods.

At least the weather had improved. The grass we'd sat down on was still wet from the rain earlier that day, and it couldn't have been more than fifty-odd degrees, but at least it wasn't raining anymore, and we even got a few rays of evening sun.

≺Guys, I think Marco's waking up again,≻ Tobias alerted us after a few minutes.

"Again?" I asked.

≺Visser One used the explosion as a distraction to try to get away. She'd kept Marco so perfectly still until that moment that I didn't even realize he was already awake. Eva hit him with a second stun blast just before he could get away in the escape pod. Then she made him immune.≻

"T-Tobias?" he stammered as he tried to get up. "Wh-what…"

≺Visser One's still in there with you, right?≻

"O-oh man…" he groaned, letting himself fall back down on the grass.

Eva sat down next to him with a pained expression. "It'll be okay. I-I know how she can be, but… she can't stay inside you for more than two days."

I slowly walked over to Marco. I knew I had to say something, but I was having a bit of trouble working out what, exactly.

"Hey, um… I'm… I'm sorry… I should have realized what was going on…"

He sighed. "Yeah, you have no idea how much I was screaming at you when you pointed that Dracon beam at Mom. You should've pointed it at _both_ of us. What will you guys ever do without my brilliance?"

He said that last part with a bit of a grin, of course.

"Oh, praise be Marco the brilliant," Rachel teased from a little ways away. "Putting your ear right up to a downed Controller must have taken some real brainpower. I'd never have thought of doing that."

"Like busting through our back porch window while trying to leave quietly?" Jordan pitched in.

"You're supposed to be on _my_ side!"

"Nuh-uh."

"But seriously, I'm just glad you're back to being the Marco I know," I said.

"Yeah. Me too. But you know what? I'll even forgive you for thinking that was really me, if you treat me to a nice, relaxing day at the arcade. Just as soon as we get this thing out of my head."

"Deal," I smiled.

"How has Visser One been taking this…?" Eva asked worriedly. "I-is she trying to hurt you?"

"I'm actually not sure," Marco admitted. "I can tell that she's still there, but she hasn't really done anything since I woke up."

"Maybe she can't," Cassie said. "I couldn't do a thing when I was in Eva compared to when I was in Jess. Those patches are a lot stronger than Jess' natural immunity."

"Speaking of, how many of those things do we have?" I asked.

Cassie shook her head. "Jess made a whole stack while we were running around the Blade ship, but she only managed to save five of them in all that panic at the end."

"I-I tried –" Jessica stammered weakly.

"Shh, no one's blaming you," Cassie said quickly, and stroked her back. She hadn't left her side since she demorphed. "We'd have had none if it weren't for you."

Erek showed up with the morphing cube soon after. Cassie used it to pass our ability on to Jessica. Then Tobias let her acquire him, and she was a hawk in no-time.

She almost immediately morphed back to her human form. As expected, her body returned completely healed, and, well… naked, so us guys turned away from her until Erek made her a fresh set with his hologram tech.

She was absolutely elated. "I-I can't believe it! I can't believe it actually worked! I don't feel a thing anymore!"

"Welcome to the Animorphs," Cassie smiled.

"The only club in the world where you basically die every other week, yet still live to tell the tale," Marco added. "To other Animorphs, anyway. Or those stupid stories we write when we get bored."

"So, how do you guys want to do this?" Erek asked. "It's a long walk from here, and Eva can't morph. Stick together or split up?"

≺I would also advise against Marco morphing,≻ Ax said. ≺I am still not sure how Visser One would be stored in Zero-space, and we don't know what effect morphing would have on the immunity substance. It is possible that Visser One would be able to assume control.≻

"You hear that, you rotten Yeerk?" Marco said. "Now I have to walk. I hope you're happy. No, scratch that. I hope you wither away and _die._ " Then he paused, and frowned thoughtfully. "What about Dad, anyway? Who's going to tell him? I don't think it should be me, unless Visser One decides to kill herself, first."

Right. Our parents. I'd be grounded for skipping school and coming home late, no doubt about that, but that's nothing new. Marco's dad, though… Marco couldn't go home with Visser One still in his head. Eva couldn't go talk to him either, at least not without hologram support from Erek, because every single Controller on the street would recognize her. And I don't think he'd listen to anyone else.

But what would we tell him, anyway? The truth? For one thing, just because we _think_ he's not a Controller, doesn't mean he _really_ isn't. We'd have to figure that out for sure, first, like we did with Jessica's mom. And then we'd have to convince him to hide with us somehow, and make him disappear in some seemingly unrelated way.

Marco, too. I have no idea what happens when the world thinks you've become an orphan, but it's probably not very convenient for us.

"Marco, I hate to do this to you, but we can't know for sure whether your dad is a Controller. And I think it's a _really_ bad idea for us to try to come up with a good way to check now, because we're all way too tired. Not to mention all the other stuff we'd have to do to sort everything out. We can't tell him yet."

Marco wasn't sure what to say to that. He looked to Eva for help, but she was just staring off into the distance with a deeply sad look on her face. I think she knew I was right.

"I may be able to solve part of this problem," Erek said. "Marco can take control of a projection until Visser One leaves him, like Rachel did when we staged her death, so he can appear to go home without risk of Visser One escaping. When she finally decides to leave him, we can keep her safely locked away if she so chooses."

"What? Are you saying you'd let her _live?"_ Eva asked incredulously. "You can't do that! You have no idea how smart she is!"

"With respect, neither you nor Visser One have any idea how smart or technologically advanced us Chee are. I assure you that she would not escape. And while I share your sentiment, it is against my programming to not offer her a way to live out her remaining life." Then he looked at Marco. "You won't know the difference between your projection and your real body. Ask Rachel if you don't believe me. The only annoying part is that I have to stay close to your projection, but I'll manage."

"Why couldn't you have done that with my mom if she'd been a Controller?" Jessica asked.

"For one thing, because your mom was not immune. If that hypothetical Yeerk had simply threatened to kill her if we wouldn't let them leave, it would've forced our hand. Visser One has no such leverage. Even if she _could_ hurt Marco, which she probably can't, she knows so much that many more would die if we would let her leave."

Jessica thought about that for a second. Then she sighed. "Actually, speaking of my mom, can we maybe continue this discussion while we're walking? I'd kind of like to go see her, now."

"Yeah, I also want to go home…" Cassie said. "I'm really worried about what my parents might do when they realize I've been missing all day… They're _already_ worried sick about me. And angry."

For a few days already, Cassie's parents have suspected that she's involved with the imaginary drug dealers who supposedly killed Rachel. And then they found her and Jessica passed out on the floor next to two injection needles yesterday. That was also a Yeerk thing, of course, but it convinced them that Cassie's a drug-addict. So basically, while my parents would just think I'm out doing something with Marco, hers might think she's lying overdosed in an alley somewhere. Or worse.

"Maybe we should just split up," I said. "Cassie, you should go home as quickly as you can. The sooner you're home, the smaller the chance of your parents getting us all in Yeerk trouble. But what goes for Marco goes for you, too… Don't tell your parents anything until we have more time to think things through."

She nodded, but didn't say anything, and looked like she could have burst out crying any second. Cassie's always been closer to her parents than your average kid. It hurts her deeply that her parents don't trust her anymore.

I put my arm around her. "It'll be okay, Cass. They'd understand if they knew what was really going on."

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then she started morphing into her osprey form. "S-see you guys later, then…"

The rest of us decided to stick together on our walk back. Some of us still morphed because it's just more comfortable than hiking through the middle of a forest in human form, but we never strayed too far.

It was pitch black by the time we made it to the forest hideout. Like Erek said, that had gotten a lot bigger. There were four houses now; one for Rachel and Jordan, one for Jessica and Sharon, one for Hank, and one for Eva. They were built inside a dome-shaped hologram that was about three-hundred feet across. Seen from above, that dome made the area look almost exactly like it used to, and Erek's invisibility tech is so far beyond the Yeerks' that not even their scanners should be able to pick it up. From within the forest, the area looked like a particularly dense group of young trees, instead. The first couple of rows felt like they were real, so any lost hikers would just walk around it.

Marco, Erek, and I walked the remainder of the way to Erek's house. I didn't go inside with them though, because it was already around ten PM when we got there.

Twelve hours of struggling against the Yeerks, nothing to eat or drink for the last nine-ish, and my parents would think I'd spent the day slacking off… Wonderful.

I got the usual, expected treatment at home. "Where have you been?" "You can't just skip a day of school whenever you feel like it!" "You should at _least_ have called!" "You're grounded for the next five thousand years!" I was sent to bed without dinner, too.

But, hey. I could just as easily have been dead, or a Controller. I'd take getting yelled at by a loving family over that any day.


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter 20**

* * *

I couldn't sleep, of course. Not for lack of being tired or _wanting_ to sleep; I don't think I had more than a few hours of sleep the past two nights. It wasn't because of my empty stomach either, although that wasn't helping.

I just couldn't stop thinking about Cassie. How we'd almost lost her to the Yeerks through sheer dumb luck, and how she ended up betting her life to save mine later. How I _still_ hadn't told her how I really felt, despite us literally having been inside each other's heads. How her parents really _could_ have been made Controllers that day for all we knew, and what that would do to her.

I gave up and morphed falcon around two AM. I knew I had to be careful about morphing around my brother, Tom, because he's a Controller. But I just didn't care enough. I _had_ to go see Cassie.

With my falcon eyes, I could tell from a mile away that the light in her room was still on. So, like me, she was probably still awake.

The next thing I noticed was that her curtains weren't drawn, and that her window was open. Had she left in bird morph, too?

That had me really worried for a few minutes. I felt like she'd at least have turned the lights off if she'd done that, unless she was in a hurry. What if her parents _had been_ made Controllers, and they were onto her? The Yeerks could have been chasing her for hours already!

But things weren't _that_ dire. When I finally got close enough to get the right angle through the window, I saw that she was just sitting on the side of her bed.

She was crying, though.

≺Cassie?≻

Talking to her startled her in a bad way at first, but then she jumped over to the window to look around for me. I could already see her pupils dilate to adjust to the darkness by then, but she didn't see me until right before I landed on her window frame.

She immediately grabbed me, pushing me between her arms, stomach, chest, and chin. She squished me so hard that it hurt, but I forced my bird-of-prey mind not to struggle.

"Jake, I'm so scared…" she said shakily, sending tears into my feathers.

≺A-are your parents –≻

"What if they saw or recorded me on some surveillance feed? What if Visser One escapes? I keep jumping at every sound I hear, they could be coming for me, like when they were looking for Rachel and Jordan… I'm so glad you're here…"

All rationality faded away, seeing and hearing her like that. I silenced that nagging voice in the back of my head, the one that was telling me that I'd have to be back in bed before morning. That was a problem for later. Now there was just Cassie.

So I demorphed. As soon as I had arms to speak of, I put them around her. She never let go of me as I grew.

She talked to me about all the things that were troubling her. I didn't say much, I just listened. And there was a lot to listen to.

How unsafe she felt, even in her own home, having been dragged away from there by police Controllers two times now. Especially after having been out of morph in plain sight of Visser One and two of her lead Hork-Bajir. How stupid she felt for still feeling that way now that Visser One was locked up and those Hork-Bajir and their Yeerks were dead.

How she just couldn't get Visser Three's brief but horrifying torture session out of her head. How close Jessica had actually come to telling Visser Three everything he wanted to know in just those few minutes. How she knew that she wouldn't have lasted any longer.

How bad she felt about almost dying or getting caught while she and her parents were on such bad terms. How weak she felt about having such a hard time dealing with them in the first place, when her family was supposedly the only one that hadn't been directly affected by the Yeerks. How she felt like she had to hide those feelings from us because of that, but was so utterly failing to do so.

How much it bothered her that most Yeerks aren't evil. That some, like Ekfis four and Aftran nine-four-two, would even go as far as giving their freedom and lives to do good. Yet we often end up having to kill them anyway.

Not to mention their hosts. If the Yeerks still had _some_ say in the matter, their hosts definitely didn't. Aside from the Taxxons, none of them chose to partake in the war, to be enslaved. Yet we have to fight and sometimes kill them just the same.

How Jessica had practically begged her to kill her while they were in that cell, because she was restrained to the point of not being able to kill herself. How she'd all but agreed to do it in the end.

How terrified she was of who she felt like she was turning into, slowly but surely being desensitized by all that death. But at the same time, how guilty she felt about trying to leave the group for that reason two months ago, essentially saying that we'd have to do the hard work for her. She'd avoided that conversation topic throughout those two months, but apparently it had never been far from her mind.

Even how scared she was of what would happen to the animals in the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic if she and her parents would become Controllers. Leave it to Cassie to worry about wild animals just as much as she worries about herself, her family, and her friends. And _still_ she worries that she's too insensitive.

And finally, how scared she was of something happening to me.

I kissed her. Just like that. It was like there was no other response possible to hearing all that.

We fell silent for a minute or so, still holding on to each other tightly. I eventually broke the silence.

"You _did_ kiss me after that explosion, didn't you?"

"Of _course_ I did… I thought it was going to be my last chance… I didn't want to die without having done that."

Then someone knocked on Cassie's bedroom door. It was so abrupt and unexpected that we almost lost our balance together as we turned to look.

"Hide!" Cassie hissed at me, and pushed me down onto the ground by her bed. But the door opened before I could crawl underneath it.

Both of Cassie's parents were standing in the door frame. They looked more worried and heartbroken than I'd ever seen them before. I think they'd even been crying.

They saw me for sure, but they didn't seem surprised that I was there. Nor did they look like they were about to throw a fit for me being alone with Cassie in the middle of the night, while both of us were only wearing our morphing outfits.

They awkwardly walked in and sat on the edge of the bed by us, looking at each other to try to work out where to begin.

Did they overhear us? How much? What do we do now? Yell 'this isn't what it looks like?'

I looked at Cassie. She was trembling, but was completely frozen otherwise. She looked almost as terrified as she had in that cell, just before I'd infested her.

I took her hand. She squeezed.

Cassie's dad spoke first.

"Honey, I… I don't know what Yeerks or Controllers or Taxxons are, but… After hearing all that, I feel like they don't have anything to do with drugs."


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter 21**

* * *

"So, you're Jake, right? My name's Lauren."

She held out her hand. I shook it reluctantly.

I turned to look at my parents. They were right behind me, with their now usual worried and sad face expressions.

I made a face that said 'do I have to do this?' Mom nodded. I sighed.

"Would you like your parents to come in with you?" Lauren asked.

I shrugged. I really didn't care either way, I just wanted to get this over with as fast as possible. Lauren gestured for the three of us to come into her office with her.

I couldn't help but look at her forehead as we went in, wondering if there was a Yeerk in there.

Not that it mattered. Either way, I couldn't tell her anything.

I sat down on a couch, with my parents on either side. Lauren sat down opposite to us.

"Jake, before anything else, I want you to understand that we're all here for _you._ To help you. Losing anyone who's close to you is hard. So I can't imagine what it must be like to lose two cousins and two of your closest friends so quickly after one another, and I don't mean to pretend to. You're here so we can try to help you learn to cope in your own way. Okay?"

I shrugged again, avoiding eye contact.

This was about a week after mothership day, by the way. Lauren was talking about Rachel, Jordan, Cassie, and Marco.

Erek had helped Cassie and her parents stage their deaths on Sunday morning, the night after they overheard us talking. Everyone had first spent the whole night carrying animals and stuff that was sentimentally valuable from their house to an exact hologram-based copy at our hideout. Then Erek made lifeless hologram versions of Cassie, her parents, and all the animals, left them in the barn, made some bullet holes here and there, and burnt the whole thing down using the bulk of their disinfectant storage.

It was supposed to look like some kind of robbery gone wrong. Judging by the newspaper article about it, it worked well enough.

Visser One had left Marco the day after, some time during school. Until then, he'd been walking around using Erek's hologram tech, like Erek had suggested.

Visser One had taken Erek up on his offer to keep her alive. I'm sure she was just biding her time, but not even the Chee who were skeptical about interfering with the war showed any intention of ever letting her leave.

It was a simple calculation for their pacifism directives. If they'd let her leave, we would most certainly be killed, one way or another. If they'd hand her over to us, we'd either kill her, she'd die of Kandrona starvation, or she'd break free and we would also be killed. Keeping her alive with them was the only way where no one would die.

We'd revealed ourselves to Marco's dad on Thursday evening. Then Erek staged his and Marco's deaths on his own. I think he'd taken Marco's dad's car out onto the highway, burst one of its tires, and folded it around a tree at seventy miles an hour, after placing the usual hologram dummies in the driver and passenger seats.

Erek had also spent some time working out what exactly happened in the Yeerk world after our mothership adventure. Visser Three had survived, of course, and main power was restored to the mothership within a day. We'd destroyed more than just the immunity research though, and it'd be at least a year before they'd have a new Blade ship ready for Visser Three. He'd have to make do with Bug fighters from now on.

Visser One was successfully framed as a long-time accomplice to the Andalite bandits. Apparently Visser Three had been sitting on evidence of her troops breaking us out the first time we were on the mothership, and had just decided not to use it until now. Eva said the Council probably wouldn't have believed him even with the evidence until we destroyed the research and fled with her.

Visser Three had apparently demanded to be promoted all the way to Visser One, using Visser One's apparent sabotage as an excuse for us still being at large. But the Council had denied him that. He was promoted to Visser Two, though, as all the Vissers moved up one rank to fill Visser One's gap. So it's a good thing we'd never met the old Visser Two, because then things would have gotten really confusing.

As an awesome side effect, all talk of us possibly being humans was now perceived to be borderline traitorous, as Visser One had been the one who'd taken the lead on that theory. It's not like we didn't have to be careful anymore, but no single Yeerk would be stupid enough to report any hunches to its superiors, now. At least not for a while.

Still, I decided not to tell my family yet. Mostly because things would get real complicated real fast unless we'd also figure out a way to free my brother, Rachel's mom and younger sister, and who knows who else could be a Controller in my family. That's the problem of having a much bigger family than just my parents.

So… grief counseling for something that didn't happen. Yay.

I kind of forgot the rest of what Lauren said, especially because she gave up trying to talk to me directly pretty quickly when I just didn't respond. I think she told my parents something about giving me space to deal with things on my own terms until I'd open up.

Well, I guess that was the best possible outcome. More time to roam through the forest looking for wounded animals with Cassie, or to hang out at the arcade with Marco.

Oh, yeah, about that. We'd spent an hour or so just acquiring and mixing each other until each of us ended up with a combo-morph we were comfortable with. So we could do any public activity that could be done within an hour or so whenever we'd want, without risk of anyone recognizing us.

That didn't include school, of course, so now I was the only one of us who was still going. Sharon, Eva, and even Erek had taken it upon themselves to home-school the others in the hideout, though.

I have to admit that I was a little jealous about that. How many kids can say that they're schooled by an ex-chemistry professor, the ex-host to an alien warlord, and an alien robot? Not to mention getting lessons in basic Yeerk tech, some language called _Galard_ , and interstellar relations. I'd for _sure_ take those over algebra, literature, or American history if I could.

Of course, while somewhat weakened, the Yeerks were still out there. And we still had to figure out how to make more immunity patches, and how we'd go about using them in the first place.

But not for a while. I'd say it's high time for us to take a break from the Yeerks.

* * *

Thank you for reading!

I'd love to hear what you think. Both positive and constructive feedback is very much appreciated!


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